''Ceriporia albomellea'' is a species of

crust fungus The corticioid fungi are a group of fungi in the Basidiomycota typically having effused, smooth basidiocarps (fruit bodies) that are formed on the undersides of dead tree trunks or branches. They are sometimes colloquially called crust fungi or pa ...

in the family

Irpicaceae The Irpicaceae are a family of mostly polypores and crust fungi in the order Polyporales. Taxonomy The family was circumscribed in 2003 by mycologists Viacheslav Spirin and Ivan Zmitrovich. The type genus is '' Irpex''. Later multi-gene phylogen ...

. Found in China, it was described as new to science in 2017 by mycologists Yuan Yuan, Xiao-Hong Ji, Fang Wu, and Jia-Jia Chen. The fungus is characterized by its thin crust-like

fruit body In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the Ovary (plants), ovary after flowering plant, flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their ...

with a cottony white margin, and white to cinnamon-buff pores; it is this latter feature for which the fungus is named. Its

spores In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, f ...

are oblong to

ellipsoid An ellipsoid is a surface that may be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation. An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a surface that may be defined as the ...

and measure 3.1–3.8 by 1.7–2

μm The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Unit ...

. The type locality is southern China's

Hainan Island Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

, a location rich with wood-inhabiting fungi.

References

Fungi described in 2017 Fungi of China Irpicaceae {{Polyporales-stub