Echinostelium minutum de Bary, 1874

Treviño-Zevallos, Italo, García-Cunchillos, Iván, Basanta, Diana Wrigley De & Lado, Carlos, 2023, Diversity of Myxomycetes from Peru Part III: The high Andes and the altiplano, Phytotaxa 624 (1), pp. 1-92 : 46

79. Echinostelium minutum de Bary , in Rostafinski, Sluzowce monogr. 215 (1874)

Specimen examined. PERU. Ancash: Huari, Huari, Huamparan , 10 km north of town by route PE-14C, 3996 m, 9°12′40”S, 77°12′14”W, 12 May 2018, debris and rhytidome of Polylepis sp. (mc, 3 Jan 2020, pH 4.39), Treviño Myx 651 (MA-Fungi 97931, HSP) .

Notes. Four species of the genus Echinostelium are known to occur in Peru: E. apitectum K.D. Whitney , E. arboreum H.W. Keller & T.E. Brooks , E. colliculosum K.D. Whitney & H.W. Keller , and E. minutum . Echinostelium minutum differs from E. apitectum and E. colliculosum by developing a capillitium, absent in the latter, and from E. arboreum by the persistent peridium, fugacious in E. minutum (Whithney, 1980) . Detection of Echinostelium species requires moist chamber cultures due to their tiny size and ephemeral nature. This corticolous species produces fruiting bodies in a few days, usually on tree bark, forming large colonies yet imperceptible to the naked eye. In the studied area, the species produced fruiting bodies in moist chamber cultures of the rhytidome (foliose bark) of Polylepis trees.