Xylaria hypoxylon (L.: Fries) Grev.
Flora Edinensis 1: 355. 1824.

Common Name: Candlesnuff Fungus

• Sporocarp

  Fruit bodies erect, tough, pliant, clavarioid in shape, usually branched near the top, occasionally simple, up to 8 cm tall by 3-5 mm broad, often flattened in cross section above, rounded below; the base dark brown to black, often tomentose, branch tips white from asexual spores (conidia) or concolorous with the base and minutely pimpled with perithecial pores.

• Spores

  Ascospores 10-14 X 4-6 µm, black, smooth, kidney shaped. Asexual spores hyaline, smooth, elliptical to elongated.

• Habitat

  Scattered to gregarious to clustered on rotting wood.

• Edibility

  Unknown.

• Comments

  Xylaria hypoxylon can be found year round in the S.F. Bay Area on downed wood. Fruiting bodies are blackish, thin, wiry and branched with white tips. The white tips consist of masses of asexual spores (conidia). As the fruiting body matures, it thickens, becomes all black, and sexual (ascospores) are produced in embedded perithecia. The latter form tiny pores on the surface of the fruiting body. Critical study of this species is needed in California, as there may be a number of species of Xylaria masquerading under this name, or the species may be extremely variable.

• Other Descriptions and Photos

   

  • Tom Duffy: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP) -- slender sporocarps with white conidiospores
  • Taylor F. Lockwood: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP) -- Mature sporocarp showing perithecial pores. The white, conidia covered branch tips, typical of young specimens, are lacking here
  • Taylor F. Lockwood: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP) -- young specimens with white conidiospores
  • Michael Wood: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP)
  • Michael Wood: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP) -- From Scotland
  • Michael Wood: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP)
  • Michael Wood: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP)
  • Na Grzyby: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP)
  • George Barron's Fungi of Canada (East): Xylaria hypoxylon (D & CP)
  • Spotlight on Fungi: Xylaria hypoxylon (D & CP)
  • Mushroom Observer: Xylaria hypoxylon (CP)
  • Arora (1986): p. 885 (D), p. 886 (P)
  • Breitenbach & Kränzlin (vol. 1): sp. 349 (D, I, & CP)
  • Jordan: p. 78 (D & CP)
  • Lincoff: p. 375 (D), plate 738 (CP)
  • Phillips: P. 310 (D), p. 311 (CP)
  
  

  (D=Description; I=Illustration; P=Photo; CP=Color Photo)