''Urnula'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

cup fungi The Pezizaceae (commonly referred to as cup fungi) are a family of fungi in the Ascomycota which produce mushrooms that tend to grow in the shape of a "cup". Spores are formed on the inner surface of the fruit body ( ascoma). The cup shape typi ...

in the family

Sarcosomataceae The Sarcosomataceae are a family of fungi in the order Pezizales. According to a 2008 estimate, the family contains 10 genera and 57 species. Most species are found in temperate areas, and are typically saprobic Saprotrophic nutrition or lys ...

, circumscribed by

Elias Magnus Fries Elias Magnus Fries (15 August 1794 – 8 February 1878) was a Swedish mycologist and botanist. He is sometimes called the Mycology, "Linnaeus of Mycology". In his works he described and assigned botanical names to hundreds of fungus and li ...

in 1849. The genus contains several species found in Asia, Europe, Greenland, and North America. Sarcosomataceae fungi produce dark-colored (brown to black), shallow to deep funnel-shaped fruitbodies with or without a stipe, growing in spring. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of the genus is '' Urnula craterium'', commonly known as the devil's urn or the gray urn. ''Urnula'' species can grow as

saprobe Saprotrophic nutrition or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of decayed (dead or waste) organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi ...

s or

parasites Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The en ...

having an

anamorphic Anamorphic format is a cinematography technique that captures widescreen images using recording media with narrower native Aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios. Originally developed for 35 mm movie film, 35 mm film to create widescreen pres ...

state. The anamorphic form of ''U. craterium'' causes Strumella canker, on

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

trees.

Taxonomy

circumscribed the new genus ''Urnula'' in 1849, and set what was then known as ''Peziza craterium'' as the

. The

name means "little

urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape ...

"; the

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

is derived from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

'' cratera'', referring to a type of bowl used in antiquity.

Description

Imperfect states

The

life cycle Life cycle, life-cycle, or lifecycle may refer to: Science and academia *Biological life cycle, the sequence of life stages that an organism undergoes from conception to reproduction *Life-cycle hypothesis, in economics *Erikson's stages of psy ...

of ''Urnula craterium'' allows for both an

imperfect The imperfect ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was doing (something)" o ...

(making asexual spores, or

conidia A conidium ( ; : conidia), sometimes termed an asexual chlamydospore or chlamydoconidium (: chlamydoconidia), is an asexual, non- motile spore of a fungus. The word ''conidium'' comes from the Ancient Greek word for dust, ('). They are also ...

) or perfect (making sexual spores) form; as has often happened in fungal

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

, the imperfect form was given a different name, because the relationship between the perfect and imperfect forms of the same species was not then known. The imperfect stage of ''Urnula craterium'' is the

plant pathogen Plant diseases are diseases in plants caused by pathogens (infectious organisms) and environmental conditions (physiological factors). Organisms that cause infectious disease include fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, viruses, viroids, virus-like orga ...

ic species ''Conoplea globosa'', known to cause a

canker A plant canker is a small area of dead tissue, which grows slowly, often over years. Some cankers are of only minor consequence, but others are ultimately lethal and therefore can have major economic implications for agriculture and horticultur ...

disease (Strumella canker) of

and several other

hardwood Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...

Species

*'' U. craterium'' (Schwein.) Fr. (1851) *'' U. groenlandica'' Dissing (1981) – Greenland *'' U. helvelloides'' Donadini, Berthet & Astier (1973) *'' U. hiemalis'' Nannf. (1949) – Northern Europe; Alaska *'' U. mediterranea'' (M.Carbone, Agnello & Baglivo) M.Carbone, Agnello & P.Alvarado (2013) *'' U. mexicana'' *'' U. padeniana'' M.Carbone, Agnello, A.D.Parker & P.Alvarado (2013) *'' U. philippinarum'' Rehm (1914) – Philippines *'' U. torrendii'' Boud. (1911) – Europe *'' U. versiformis'' Y.Z.Wang & C.L.Huang (2014) – Taiwan *'' U. viridirubescens'' (Bagnis) Boud. (1907) The European species provisionally named ''Urnula brachysperma'' by François Brunelli in 1997 is not yet validly published. Several species once classified in ''Urnula'' have since been transferred to other genera in the Sarcosomataceae or the

Chorioactidaceae The Chorioactidaceae are a family of cup fungi in the order Pezizales, first described to contain seven species distributed among five genera. '' Pseudosarcosoma'' was added in 2013 to contain '' P. latahense'' when molecular phylogenetic st ...

. Peck's 1894 ''Urnula geaster'' is now type species of the genus '' Chorioactis'', while ''Urnula pouchetii'' Berthet & Riousset 1965 in now in '' Neournula'' (Chorioactidaceae). ''Urnula lusitanica'', published in 1911 by Torrend and Boudier, is now '' Donadinia lusitanica''. ''Urnula megalocrater'' Malençon & Le Gal 1958, ''Urnula platensis'' Speg. 1898, and ''Urnula rugosa'' Le Gal 1958 are now all classified in the genus ''

Plectania ''Plectania'' is a genus of fungi in the family Sarcosomataceae. It was circumscribed by German botanist Karl Wilhelm Gottlieb Leopold Fuckel in 1870. There were 15 species in the genus in 2008, this has increased to 19 by 2023. Distribution I ...

''.

Habitat and distribution

''Urnula'' species can grow as

s or

having an

state. Fruitbodies of ''U. craterium'' and ''U. hiemalis'' tend to persist in one location for many growing seasons, sometimes even for several decades.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4006482 Pezizales genera Pezizales Taxa named by Elias Magnus Fries Taxa described in 1849