Antella niemelaei is a species of poroid crust fungus in the family Steccherinaceae.

Taxonomy

Antella niemelaei was formally described as new to science in 2011 as a member of Antrodiella. The specific epithet niemelaei honours Finnish mycologist Tuomo Niemelä, who made the first documented collections of this fungus in 1985.^[2] In 2016, Otto Miettinen transferred the species to the new genus Antella, in which it is the type species.^[1]

Description

Antella niemelaei is a European species that grows as a thin (about 0.5 mm thick), cream-coloured crust on dead hardwoods, especially on or around the dead fruit bodies of the polypore Hymenochaetopsis tabacina. It has small circular pores numbering about 4 per mm. The hyphal system is dimitic, with thin-walled generative hyphae having clamp connections, and thick-walled skeletal hyphae. Both hyphal types measure 2–4 μm wide. The spores produced by the fungus are thin-walled, hyaline, and ellipsoid, measuring 2.8–4 by 1.8–2.2 μm.^[2]

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