Order PEZIZALES 



Ascophores consisting of discoid or cup-shaped apothecia, or 

 more rarely clavate, columnar, or pileate; apothecia devoid of 

 associated algal cells (except in the Patellariaceae, which family 

 may contain either algicolous or non-algicolous species), free or 

 more rarely seated on a subiculum or springing from a sclerotium, 

 ranging in size from a fraction of a millimeter to several centi- 

 meters, variously colored, the hymenium concave, plane, or con- 

 vex, and circular or subcircular in form, more rarely elongate or 

 star-shaped, either enclosed by the apothecium or the excipulum 

 when young or free from the first, very poorly developed or 

 partially to entirely enclosing the hymenium when young, usually 

 expanding at maturity leaving the hymenium freely exposed or, 

 in a few cases, remaining closed until pierced or ruptured by the 

 maturing asci, the tissue of the hypothecium either composed 

 of loosely interwoven hyphae, prosenchymatous, or giving rise to 

 a parenchyma-like tissue, pseudoparenchyma, or pseudoparen- 

 chymatous below and filamentous above; pileus bell-shaped, 

 saddle-shaped, but never cup-shaped, even or irregularly con- 

 voluted or corrugated, surmounted by the hymenium; substance 

 fleshy, leathery, cartilaginous, or corneous; asci ovoid to cylindric, 

 two- to many-spored, operculate or inoperculate, rarely bilabiate; 

 spores globose, ellipsoid, fusiform or filiform, one- to many-celled, 

 hyaline or variously colored, yellowish, violet, brown or more 

 rarely olivaceous, smooth or variously sculptured, echinulate, 

 verrucose, tuberculate, reticulate, ringed or marked with irregular 

 ridges; paraphyses filiform to clavate, simple or branched, 

 variously colored. 



Asci operculate (opening by a circular lid at 

 the apex), or more rarely by a transverse 

 slit which gives to the open ascus a bila- 

 biate appearance; in the latter the ascus 

 is surrounded just below its apex by a 



thickened ring or collar. Section 1. Operculates. 



Ascophores consisting of cup-shaped or dis- 

 coid apothecia; apothecia sessile or more 

 rarely stipitate. Family 1. Pezizaceae. 



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