| Pyronema | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Pyronema sp. fruiting on burned soil a few months after a wildfire in California, USA | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Pezizomycetes |
| Order: | Pezizales |
| Family: | Pyronemataceae |
| Genus: | Pyronema |
| Type species | |
| Pyronema omphalodes | |
| Species | |
P. domesticum (Sowerby) Sacc. (1889) | |
| Synonyms [1] | |
PhycoascusA.Møller (1901) | |
Pyronema is a genus of cup fungi in the family Pyronemataceae. Pyronema are found fruiting exclusively on recently burned or heat-sterilized substrates. [2] The fruiting bodies (apothecia) are light-pink to orange and disc or cushion shaped. Always growing in dense clusters, and often fusing together resulting in an amorphous mat-like appearance. Ascospores are simple, smooth, ellipsoid, colorless, and lack lipid droplets. When grown in a laboratory setting on agar plates, P. domesticum produces sclerotia, whereas P. omphalodes does not. [3] P. domesticum tends to produce pink to orange apothecia and slightly larger spores, whereas P. omphalodes apothecia are orange to yellow-orange with slightly smaller spores. [4] Pyronema are known to dominate the soil fungal community after fire, [5] and P. domesticum has been shown to metabolize charcoal. [6] [7] P. omphalodes is synonymous with P. confluens and P. marianum. [1]
Pyronema was first circumscribed as Peziza omphalodes by Pierre Bulliard in 1790, [8] [9] and in 1870 Leopold Fuckel built off the description from Bulliard, merging several synonymous species into P. omphalodes. [10] In 1889, Pier Andrea Saccardo circumscribed the species P. domesticum, directly building from the work of James Sowerby. [11]
