Omphalina chromacea (Cleland) T.W.May and A.E.Wood Mycotaxon 54: 148 (1995)

Image © Patricia Jordan Reproduced by permission Common Name: Chrome Omphalina

Literally: a tiny, chrome yellow navel. (Omphalos [Gr.] - navel; chromos [Gr.] - bright yellow.) Groups of tiny, yellow, funnel shaped fruiting bodies grow on an algal bed. A similar fungus, Omphalina ericitorum, is dull orange.

• Pileus
  0.5-3cm usually up to 2cm diameter. Bright chrome yellow, drying to pale orange-yellow. Funnel-shaped with a finely grooved, wavy margin. Smooth, waxy. Translucent-striate, drying opaque yellow; not viscid. Flesh white or tinted slightly yellow.
• Lamella/gills
  Chrome yellow to orange, decurrent, not crowded. Often forked. Edges rather thick. Distant.
• Stipe/stem
  Up to 2cm long. Slender, widening at top. Smooth. Same colour as pileus. No volva or ring, not detachable.
• Smell
  None
• Spores
  7-8 x 3.5-4.5 µm elliptical, smooth, prominent apiculus, not amyloid. Spore print white.
• Habitat
  This species is very common on bare ground such as bush tracks, road banks and rabbit mounds. Although small, it is always conspicuous because of its bright yellow colour. This species is a lichen; the chrome yellow fungal fruiting body produces the spores, the green algal mat on which it grows photosynthesises.
• References
  Fuhrer, B. Field Companion to Australian Fungi, p. 62.

  Bougher, N & Syme, K. Fungi of Southern Australia, pp. 208-209

Distribution map

Last modified on 28 May 2001

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