Pink Fringed Faery Cup

The diameter of the cup- or funnel-shaped fruit bodies is 0.5 to 0.8 centimetres (1⁄4 to 3⁄8 in) in diameter; the margins of the cup are curved inwards when young. Both the interior and exterior surfaces of the cup are scarlet red. The exterior surface is covered with stiff white hairs. Details of the hair structure may be seen with a magnifying glass: they are up to 1 mm long or more, translucent, thick-walled, rigid and more or less sword-shaped with simple, sharply diminishing bases. They are connected to the fruit body at the junction of internal tissue layers called the medullary and ectal excipulums. When the hairs come in contact with an alkali solution of 2% potassium hydroxide, the thick walls of the base of the hair first swell in size and then dissolve, releasing the contents of the internal lumen. The stipe is cylindrical, and about 1 to 5 cm (3⁄8 to 2 in) long by 1–2 mm thick. The species is inedible.

Microscopic characteristics. The spores are 20–30 by 14–16 μm; the asci (spore-bearing cells) are 300–350 by 18–20 μm. The paraphyses (sterile, upright, basally attached filaments in the hymenium, growing between asci) are thin, slightly thickened at the tip and contain many red granules.

Similar species. Microstoma apiculosporum is a species from Taiwan that has spores with short, sharply pointed tips. …

Microstoma floccosum has been collected from the United States, India, China, and Japan. A saprobic species, M. floccosum grows scattered to clustered together, attached to wood that is typically partially buried in the earth. A preference for both oak and Shagbark hickory has been noted.

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