UH' SOUTH AUKTRAIjIA. 
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CALOCEEA Ur. 
(Gr., kalos, beautiful; keraa, a horn.) 
“Receptacle gelatinous coriaceous, cartilaginous when dry; erect, cylindrical, 
simple or branched. Hymonium smooth, aiiiphigeuous. Basidia with' two long 
sterigniata. Spores white or yellow, elliptical, elliptic oblong or comma-shapecl, 
smooth or punctate, simple, becoming septate on germination. Conidiophores 
rarely accompanying the basidia. Growing on wood, more rarely amongst 
leayes. ’ ’ — Rea. 
These are small, tough-gelatinous, mostly orange coloured awl-like fungi common 
on rotting trunks. 
The genus Calocera is diyided iij) into thiee sections, branched plants, caespitose 
plants, and those which are simple and distinct. In our experience of Australian 
2 )lants the spore measurements do not help much, being somewhat variable and all 
more or less like each other in size or shape. Branched species may show simple 
forms on the same substratum, and the simple species show a tendency to branch 
and sometimes may grow close together so as to be subcaespitose. The colour 
varies from ochraceous orange to brownish orange or dingy yellowish. Whilst 
typical specimens may be readily placed under one or other species, intenne<liate 
forms may be met with about which unccTfainty arises. 
*Branched (usually). 
559. Calocera guepinioides Berk. (Probable syn., C. variiformis Lloyd.) 
{Guepinioides, like the genus Guepiwia). — Berkeley’s description of this species 
{vide Cooke’s Handbook of Australian Fungi, No. li:!7) is: — “Small, erumpeiit, 
valuable, red brown, 1 cm. high ; stem compressed, palmate above, branches few 
and quite obtuse.’’ Lloyd describes C. variiformis (Mycological Notes, VII., 
1922, page I:l59, tig. 3218) as wedge shaped, pale almost white but faint yellow; 
spores hyaline, 12 x (i fi, slightly curved; young forms varying much, some being 
broad and some narrow without any wedge shape. His figure shows a palmate 
slightly branched plant. Dr. Lloyd has identified specimens for us under both 
these names. He points out that the colour ‘ ‘ red brown ’ ’ of Berkeley is evidently 
that of the dried plant, not of the living. In our opinion C. variiformis is the 
same species as C. guej>uiiodcs. 
The following is a description of specimens from Mount Lofty, July, which 
seem to be definitely C. guepinioides: — Near Ochraceous Orange (xw), the buried 
base paler. Half-inch (1.2 cm.) high, the emergent part being dm. (6 mm.), 
springing from a, branching, rather flattened stem from slits in rotting wood. 
Branches spreading laterally, rather flattened, the teiininal branchlets very 
irregular with obtuse summits, sometimes forming broad lobes, smooth. Plants 
rarely simple rounded clubs lor like an incisor tooth. Spores apparently faintly 
tinted, 15 x 5.5 g. 
The following, also from Mount Lofty, July, were identified by Llov'd as 
C. vuiriiformis : — Dingy orange yellow or orange, 5 mm. high, simple oi' rather 
flattened with several sh.ort prongs. Gpores 10.4 to 12 x 3.2 to 5 g. Specimens 
from a dead Finns log, Glen Osmond, May to July, Identified by Lloyd as 
C. guepinioides, presented the following appearance: — Ochraceous Tawny (xv.), 
(in. (Omni.) high, usually simple with a blunt, slightly attenuated tip, occasionally 
flattened or with several jmmgs. Spores elongated, slightlj' curved, 8 to 12.8 x 
3.2 to 4.8 g. Gregarious or accidentally caespitose. 
In looking through a number of collections of Calocera from Mount Lofty and 
the National Park, May to August, these vary, sometimes in the same collection, 
from a simple awl-shape with a subacute or blunt ajiex to flattened and branched 
forms. Most are about 5 to 7 mm. high, 0.75 to 1 mm. thick. The base is nearly 
always abrupt. The colour varies from orange to a dull or dingy yellow. If 
C. vd.riiformis is a. good species, the dingy yellow forms would seem referrable to 
tliis but there seems to be no other ]>oint of distinction. 
500. Calocera fusca Lloyd (L., fnseus, brown). — Lloyd’s description (Mycologi- 
cal Notes, VII., 1922, pages 1357 and 1359, figs. 3199 and 3215) states that the 
plants are simple, gregarious, gelatinous unbranched c.lubs about 2 cm. high 
(in the New Zealand specimens), brown rather than yellow or brown with darker 
tips, spores hyaline, slightly curved, 2-guttulated, 10 . to 12 x 5 to 0 g. One 
collection was from New Zealand, the other from Kerrdall in New South Wales. 
