Underside of Eyelash Cup Fungus - microscope image

[Bruce Williams]

Growing low down in woodstack (oak I think) in Salcey Forest Northants. I thought some of you might be interested to see what one of these unusual fungi looks like up close.

We normally only see a top view of these fungi in situ so I removed a couple of heads to take a good look at them under the stereo microscope. The heads are very fragile and I found them to be surprisingly difficult to remove.

This specimen has been prepared to show as much as possible of the underside without detaching from the wood. The larger head in this image is about 5mm in diameter (largest on woodstack was about 1cm in diameter but would have been too difficult to remove).

Anyone know what purpose/function the "lashes" perform?

Bruce

[Leif]

Neat!

[C C]

Interesting photo, the features are hard to see with the naked eye.

I thought i found one of these, growing on a Cow pat (Texas landmine) . Look very similar to yours. But it was a species of Cheilymenia.

[NickCantle]

Beautiful image there Bruce. Fascinating isn't it?! Lovely stuff, thanks for sharing.

Nick

[Bruce Williams]

Thank you all for your comments.

Interestingly there were several "colonies" on different logs (all low down in the woodstack) and whilst colour was fairly uniform across all heads in any one colony, the colour varied quite a lot from one colony to the next. These two heads came from one of the lighter groups.

...well I thought it was interesting anyway.

Bruce