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. omphalodesapothecia 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]
^Bulliard, Pierre (1780–93). Herbier de la France; ou, Collection complette des plantes indigenes de ce royaume; avec leurs proprie´te´s, et leurs usages en medecine. Paris.
