Cyphellostereum is a genus of bryophilous fungi in the Hymenochaetales. They produce white, bracket-shaped, to inverted cup-shaped or somewhat stipitate-fan-shaped, small, soft, membranous to cottony fruitbodies on or among mosses, particularly members of the moss family Polytrichaceae, e.g. Common Haircap moss (Polytrichum) and Atrichum. Cyphellostereum produces nonamyloid spores and tissues, lacks clamp connections, and forms strongly projecting, thin-walled, hair-like hymenial cystidia. Phylogenetically related agaricoid fungi are in the genera Rickenella, Contumyces, Gyroflexus, Loreleia, Cantharellopsis and Blasiphalia, and Cotylidia. and the clavaroid genus, Alloclavaria. The most common species, C. laeve, has a disjunct distribution, favouring maritime influenced sites on both coasts in North America and only occurring inland in the Interior Wet Zone in British Columbia, Canada and adjacent Idaho in the USA, and up the Ottawa River valley where the post glacial Champlain Sea occurred The species is also known from Eurasia.

Etymology

The name Cyphellostereum combines two generic names: Cyphella in reference to the inverted cupulate form (like the genus Cyphella); and Stereum, in reference to the stipitate fan-shape or bracket shape (as in species of Stereum).

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