Hypoxylon sp.

The fruit bodies are more or less hemispherical, generally black and under a millimetre in diameter (frequently about half a millimetre). However, the fruit bodies appear in large groups ('glued' together so as to form what might be taken for a single structure) and such groups are easy to see with the naked eye. Most commonly the glued-together fruit bodies form a flat sheet that looks very much like a miniature cobblestone pavement. Such a composite structure is called a stroma. While the 'cobblestone pavement' stroma is common, within the genus you also find stromata that are discoid, cushion-like or close to spherical. In Hypoxylon the stroma is usually coloured. Each fruit body has a minute apical beak (or ostiole), in which there is a central channel though which the spores are released.

Annulohypoxylon is very similar to Hypoxylon. In Annulohypoxylon the ostiole sits above the general level of the stroma and almost always in the middle of a flattened circular area (as if someone had sliced through the top of a hemisphere and stuck a small pimple on the cut surface). The stromata are often black.

The stromata of both genera are found on wood, mostly on dead wood.

Regional distribution

Hypoxylon sp. is listed in the following regions: