Pyronema

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. omphalodes apothecia 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
Pyronema sp. fruiting on burned soil a few months after a wildfire in California, USA
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Ascomycota
Class:	Pezizomycetes
Order:	Pezizales
Family:	Pyronemataceae
Genus:	Pyronema
Type species
Pyronema omphalodes (Bull.) Fuckel (1870)
Species
P. domesticum (Sowerby) Sacc. (1889) P. omphalodes (Bull.) Fuckel (1870)
Synonyms[1]
Phycoascus A.Møller (1901)

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]