Skyathea hederae has only been found twice, in a single locality, on the branches of dead Hederae helix (common ivy) in Scotland in 1984 and 1985. It is the only known species in the genus Skyathea. Skyathea hederae occurs on a plant with a near-global distribution, the fungus is cryptic, and targeted searches to find this fungus have not been documented. Therefore, the population size, trend, and geographic distribution of S. hederae are poorly known. It could either be a least concern or threatened species with the current data available, so it is assessed as data deficient.

The species is the only member of the genus Skyathea. The genus has been proposed to belong to Gelatinodiscaceae based on morphology (Jaklitsch et al. 2016), and more recently, phylogeny (Stallman et al. 2026).

The species has only been found twice, in a single locality, in Scotland. It has not been seen since 1985 and is monotypic.

The species has only been collected in one location from Aird on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, United Kingdom (Dennis 1986).

The population and current trends of S. hederae are unknown. The species has only been confidently collected twice, from a single location, over 40 years ago.

Skyathea hederae may be a rare species, but it is unclear. Despite extensive collecting in the UK, it has not been rediscovered. Its only known substrate, Hedera helix, is common in the UK and many other countries. The fungus is small and cryptic and no known specific searches for this species have occurred, so its population size, trend, and the full extent of its range are unknown.

No nrITS sequences in the global metabarcoding datasets UNITE (Abarenkov et al. 2024) and GlobalFungi (Větrovský et al. 2020) share high pairwise similarity with sequences from the two known collections (PQ483788, PQ483789) as of April 13th 2026.

The ecology of S. hederae is unknown, although it is presumably saprotrophic, and potentially endophytic, as with other genera in Gelatinodiscaceae (Jaklitsch et al. 2016). The species was found near sea level on dead branches of Hedera helix (common ivy) in May. It was likely collected near a roadside adjacent to pastureland in a small village, but precise details are not recorded and no additional information is available on its habitat or ecology.

Not enough is known about the S. hederae to know if there are any potential threats.

Not enough is known about S. hederae to determine if any conservation actions would help it, or if these are even needed.

The host of S. hederae, Hedera helix, is a widespread species in its native Europe and western Asia and has naturalized in many localities throughout the world (e.g., North America, Australia). Performing targeted searches for S. hederae on H. helix throughout its range would help determine its distribution and rarity, and would be a first step to learning more about this species.

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