Home • Calocera viscosa v1.0
Photo of Calocera viscosa
Photo by Michael Wood/Mykoweb.com


Calocera viscosa (Pers.)Fr. is a member of the Dacrymycetes, which includes about 110 described species of so-called "jelly fungi"; that are characterized by gelatinous to cartilaginous fruiting bodies that are usually bright yellow-orange. Most Dacrymycetes produce relatively simple fruiting bodies that are variously cylindrical, cup-shaped, resupinate, or cushion-shaped, but C. viscosa produces an elaborate coralloid fruiting body. Almost all Dacrymycetes are reported to produce a brown rot of wood (i.e., they remove cellulose and other carbohydrates, while leaving lignin largely intact), including Dacryopinax sp. and Calocera cornea, which have also been the subject of genome sequencing by the JGI. In contrast, C. viscosa is one of the few Dacrymcyetes that has been reported to produce a white rot (i.e., it degrades both lignin and cellulose). The Dacrymycetes form the sister group of the much larger clade Agaricomycetes, which includes about 21000 described species of mushroom-forming fungi. Molecular clock analyses suggest that the divergence of Dacrymycetes and Agaricomycetes occurred roughly 350 million years ago (near the boundary of the Devonian and Carboniferous periods). Analyses of the genome of C. viscosa may provide insight into the diversification of wood decay mechanisms within this ancient lineage, as well as the biology of the common ancestor of Dacrymycetes and Agaricomycetes.

Genome Reference(s)