INDIANA MUSHROOMS
            Tolypocladium ophioglossoides
This is a small mushroom; longest here is 4 cm (about 1.5 inches), said to reach a
length of up to 8 cm. Very tough consistency but pliable. Several usually found
growing in one area; often found in mossy areas, probably due to ease of visibility.
The dark red-brown head of this mushroom is its fertile surface, the stroma,
producing and ejecting spores.
The first image above shows a single ascus which contains eight ascospores lying
side-by-side; as can be seen in the second image showing a broken ascus. These
long (150-200 microns) and thin (2 microns)) ascospores are multiseptate (divided
many times) and produce 128 part-spores, each a viable spore. Last image is of
disarticulated part-spores which measure 2.5-3.5 x 1.5-2 microns. That's small!
Multiples of eight in Cordyceps ascospores
Mycological Research, Volume 106, p.2-3 (2002)
available at Cordyceps.us
With age, Tolypocladium ophioglossoides will become completely black; the above
example was found in November attached to a cluster of
Elaphomyces granulatus.
If you dig very carefully you will find Tolypocladium ophioglossoides attached
to its host, the deer truffle, by a gold-colored thread of mycelium.
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides ascospores
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides ascospores
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides partspores
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides ascus
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides ascus
Unraveled ascospores.
Elaphocordyceps ophioglossoides and Cordyceps
ophioglossoides
are former names, all refer to the
same mushroom -
Tolypocladium ophioglossoides.