Plants and animals of Pointfield

Highly distorted cup ascomycete 8 cm across by 5 cm wide and tall; becoming strongly infolded and wrinkled towards the centre; abutting a wooden board to the rear with only a narrow attachment stub rooting it. Upper surface tobacco brown in colour, smooth and dry surfaced under ther hand-lens. Undersurface a dirty cream colour.

Asci highly elongate and inamyloid, not staining in Metzer's solution; each containing 8 spores and 20 um wide. Paraphyses much narrower, apparently in clusters; long, slender and with only a very slightly swollen head (9-10 um across). Spores large, oval and smooth, without lipid inclusions; dimensions 18.0-21.5 um x 10.0-12.5 um (mean = 19 x 11.5 um, n = 10). Sparse hairs arise from non-fertile surface.

A single individual found growing at the side of a path against a wooden retaining wall in the vegetable garden in late April.