Bonsoir chers collègues,

today my girlfreind and I have found a bright orange-red, short-haired Scutellinia on wet muddy ground.
The strange ornamentation pattern and the broadly ellipsoid spores, together with short (< 300 µm) and non-rooting (or with one root) hairs led us to S. superba, but the perispore is not loosening with lactic acid.
Lastly we concluded that it is another collection of S. kerguelensis, which we didn't key out before, because the spores were quite small.
In the key of Benat S. kerguelensis is noted as a complex - is there already some effort to separate the species in this complex? Are there small-spored and long-spored kerguelensis? We have three collections with spores 22-27 x 15-17 µm (Q = 1,5-1,6), 21-23 x 15,5-17 µm (Q = 1,33-1,44) and this collection with 20-21,8 x 15,7-17 µm (Q = 1,25-1,33) - always measured oin water. The first bigger-spored collection had hairs with 1-3 roots, the smaller-spored have hairs with 0-1 roots.

Any new insights in this complex?

thank you and all the best,
Andreas and Sylvie