Description: [Plate 69].
Fruit-body: slender, subcylindrical to strap-shaped and usually forked repeatedly near the tip, white at first due to production of conidia and then black or dark brown and covered in pimples.
Stem: black and hairy.
Spores: very long, bean-shaped, black and 11-14 × 5-6 µm in size; eight in an elongate ascus.
General Information: Another name for X. hypoxylon is ‘Candle-snuff fungus’. Other club-shaped ascomycetes include members of the genus Geoglossum (already mentioned [p. 172]) and members of the genus Cordyceps. [Plate 69].
Cordyceps militaris (St Amans) Link, the ‘Scarlet caterpillar fungus’, produces orange-red or orange, minutely roughened fruit-bodies up to 50 mm high, which grow on larvae and pupae of moths buried in the soil. It is not infrequent late in the autumn in pasture land.
C. ophioglossoides (Fries) Link produces long (up to 100 mm high) yellow stemmed, dark and rough headed fruit-bodies growing on the subterranean fungus Elaphomyces—see [p. 244].
C. capitata (Fries) Link also grows on fungi beneath the soil surface but has a rounded head. Leotia lubrica Persoon the ‘Gum-drop fungus’ is similarly coloured but grows on soil under trees and is gelatinous. It grows in autumn and is quite common and in fact more related to the Discomycetes than to Cordyceps.
Illustrations: X. polymorpha—F 7d; LH 47; NB 1476. X. hypoxylon—F 7e; LH 47; NB 1475. C. militaris—LH 48.