Otidea bufonia (Pers.) Boudier (1907: 52)

Harmaja, Harri, 2009, A note on Otidea (Pezizales, Fungi), Phytotaxa 2, pp. 49-50 : 49

Otidea bufonia (Pers.) Boudier (1907: 52)

Peziza bufonia Pers. (1822: 225) . Type material: France, Vincennes by Paris, 1816, C. H. Persoon s. n. (see Harmaja, 2009).

Peziza pseudobadia Cooke (1877: 176) ; Aleuria pseudobadia (Cooke) Gillet (1879: 38) ; Geopyxis pseudobadia (Cooke) Saccardo (1889: 69) , synon. nov. Type: France, “Merignac” Limminghe s. n. (holotype K!).

The material of Peziza pseudobadia was studied while on loan from the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (K). Only a single specimen was filed under this name. It contains four apothecia. The spores (in Melzer’s reagent) measured c. 13–15 × 6–7 µm, and were fairly fusiform in shape. Striate, brownish encrustation ( Korf & Zhuang, 1991; Harmaja, 2009) was observed on excipular hyphae. The encrusted crystals of ectal excipulum (textura prismatica) predominantly converted into reddish particles (see Harmaja, 2009). The scant collecting notes, the spore size and the curved paraphyses observed in the specimen match the protologue. The macroscopic appearance of the apothecia in the illustration of the protologue is somewhat deviating. However, the characters of the fungus show that it represents O. bufonia as currently in use, and which is also adopted in Harmaja (2009). Peziza pseudobadia is thus proven here to be a later synonym of O. bufonia .