A New Collection of Peziza apiculata in Central Europe

Abstract

Summary. A new collection of Peziza apiculata Cooke in central Europe is reported from Czechoslovakia. As the variation of this very rare species is not fully known there follows a detailed account of the material examined which represents the first collection in Czechoslovakia. In the spring of 1975 I made, by coincidence, a very interesting and significant first collection of Peziza apiculata Cooke in Czechoslovakia when I visited a known locality of Discinafastigiata (Krombh.) Svr. & J. Mor. This interesting place, a slightly hollowed, south facing slope is situated in Querceto-Carpinetum near Brno (Moravia) about 400 m above sea level. It was only casually that I peeled off the damp rotten bark of a dead tree (probably Carpinus betulus) and on the rotten wood found three apothecia of a Peziza. The apothecia were very light yellowish green because they had been fully covered by bark of the decaying tree. After about six days in a moist chamber the light yellow green colour of the thecium turned to olive and the light brown of the outside became darker. After moist chamber cultivation, all three apothecia had fully mature ascospores and were easily determined as P. apiculata, a species which has been collected very rarely, and as its variation has not been fully documented, the following description and drawings (Fig. I) of the Moravian material are provided.