Can you help ID this red spotted fungus found in a deciduous wood?

[alindsay]

Right !!!! ..... I got the Roger Phillips and the Michael Jordan for Christmas and I though all my identification problems would be over, but it seems the more you learn, the less you know, so help please for identifying this stunner.....

Found growing on a tree stump in a deciduous wood (birch, oak, maple etc) and smelt of sour milk













Thanks

[fairplay]

I'm totally stumped - the red is I believe, staining from some outside source, but ignoring this, I still don't know what this fungus is, although I'm half expecting someone will come along and embarrass me.

Neil.

[alindsay]

I should have mentioned that it was about 60mm diameter & 75mm tall.

[flaxton]

I have found exactly (well maybe) the same coloured staining in/on old Piptoporus betulinus and never managed to get anywhere with it.
Mal

[SheffieldLass]

Blackbird with the squitters after eating too many hawthorn berries maybe ...

[fairplay]

I too have seen staining like this on Piptoporus betulinus, however mine was more internal being more pronounced in the stem and underneath where Hypocrea pulvinata was parasitising.
When I first joined WAB many moons ago, this was one of the first questions I asked and was told it is most likely Hypocrea rufus, but this was way off the mark as I had no photo to send in.

The holes shown are almost certainly caused by a mollusc, so whether this particular fungus has a chemical reaction with any slug secretions, I just do not know.
I don't think this is staining by a bird with a funny tummy, more likely if it was a bird, to be a very small bird which had previously eaten a holy or blackthorn berry and had a deposit on the outside of the bill.
It may have then started on the fungus for desert and transferd the deposit causing the red stains.

However, I am convinced these holes are typical mollusc holes, produced by rows of tiny teeth mounted on a conveyor belt like organ called a radula (think of the old genus - Radulomyces, now Cerocorticium molare) that work like a rasp - scraping off the food, and resulting
in smooth round craters.

But sod all that - what's the fungus ?

Neil.

[alindsay]

Thanks all for coming back to this one.

The mollusc answer for the red spots is intriguing and will look out next time for snails/slugs with dripping red grins.

Meanwhile & echoing Fairplay .... what's the fungus??