Trichia munda (Lister) Meylan (1927: 327)

Moreno, G., Castillo, A. & Thüs, H., 2022, Critical revision of Trichiales (Myxomycetes) at the Natural History Museum London (BM), Phytotaxa 567 (1), pp. 1-20 : 18

Trichia munda (Lister) Meylan (1927: 327)

≡ Trichia botrytis var. munda Lister (1897: 216)

Syntype:— UNITED KINGDOM. England: Essex, Epping Forest, Drift Way , 51.66ºN 0.05ºE, on hornbeam leaves, 29 Nov 1896, A.G. Phear, B.M. 2942, [ BM001089762 = box, BM001089171 = slide] ( BM!), as Trichia botrytis var. munda .

Trichia munda is a rare and little quoted species, which was considered as a variety of Trichia botrytis (J. F. Gmel.) Pers. by some authors such as Lister (1897). Meylan (1927) considered it as a separate species from T. botrytis . Among other reasons he pointed out that T. munda fructifies from a white plasmodium and not purple-brown as T. botrytis .

We agree with the separation of both taxa. Trichia munda shows fructifications isolated and with smaller sporocarps (1–1.5 mm in total height), a minute sporotheca, slender stalk (2–2.5 times the diam. of the sporotheca) and strongly ornamented spores. The spore ornamentation under SEM presents very differentiated “pila” in which the head is densely mamiliferous, very similar to the spore ornamentation of Metatrichia floripara ( Rammeloo 1981) .