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Keyed out by a professional ecologist and we now think the id has merit. Living on a cedar tree, . Repeat appearance on this tree. Last year this fungus dissolved as the winter arrived.
Location now obscured to protect the specimen. Second collection of material made Dec 1, 2019 for possible DNA workup. Second collection under MF 74892

Results in Jan 2020: Oligiporus balsameus (formerly Postia genus)

Now listed in Gen Bank https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MT636953

1 aagtaaaagt cgtaacaagg tttccgtagg tgaacctgcg gaaggatcat tattgaattt
61 ttgaaggagc tgtttgctgg cctctagcgg ggcatgtgca cgctccgttc aaatccaacc
121 ttcatacccc tgtgcacctt ttgtagggtc gtggccgcga ggctgcgctc tatgttcatc
181 ataaactctt cagtatgtgt agaatgttca ttgcgtgtaa cgcatcttta tacaactttc
241 agcaacggat ctcttggctc tcgcatcgat gaagaacgca gcgaaatgcg ataagtaatg
301 tgaattgcag aattcagtga atcatcgaat ctttgaacgc accttgcgct ccttggtatt
361 ctgaggagca tgcctgtttg agtgtcatgg aaccatcaac cgttcatcct ttgttggatg
421 tggcggcttg gacttggagg cttatgctgg tttcttaacg ggatcggctc ctcttgaatg
481 cattagcttg aacctatgct gtatcggctg ttcggtgtga taattgtcta cgccgtggct
541 gtgaggcccg ttgaaagacg gtggtaggat cagcttctaa ccgtccctgc gaacgggaca
601 acatcttaat tgacctctga cctcaaatca ggtaggatta cccgctgaac ttaagcatat
661 caataagcgg aggaaaagaa actaacaagg attcccctag taactgcgag tgaagcggga
721 aaagctcaaa tttaaaatct ggcggtcctt gcggccatcc gagttgtaat ctggagaagt
781 gctttccgcg ctggac
//

Cuphophyllus #930
Photo#2 - pileipellis

Caps - 2 1/2 - 5 1/3 cm wide, convex to plane with irregular margins and some with sunken discs. Viscid at first, matte when dry. Tan becoming pale brown at disc. Randomely pock-marked.
Gills - Decurrent, arcuate, waxy,subdistant. Buff with a faint pale orenge tinge when observed sideways. Four tiers of lamellulae. Edges entire.
Stipe - 3-4 cm long and 7-9 mm thick. Canescent buff pruina on a watery tan ground. Base clavate.
Some white velar material at base. White canescent line at apex.
Odor & Taste - Mild.
Spores - White, inamyloid.
Habitat - Scattered under alder at Geneva Lake at the Stimpson Family Reserve on October 9, 2019.
Spores - Ellipsoid in face view, slightly dacryoid in profile. 7-9 x 4-5 microns. One large pale gray-blue oil drop in most. Q = 1.89.
Basidia - Clavate, 2 and 4-spored. 25-31 x 7-8 microns.
Gill Trama - Of interwoven hyphae.
Clamps - Present in pileipellis, stipitipellis, bases of basidia, and gill trama.
Pileipellis - Of interwoven hyphae 2-4 microns wide.
Pileal trama - Of radially parallel hyphae 4-10 microns wide.
Oleiferous hyphae - Present in stipitipellis.
Stipitipellis - Of vertical hyphae 3-10 microns wide.
Caulocystidia - Nests of branched and filiform hyphae with golf club (subcapitate) apices. 3-5 microns wide.
Comment - Close to Cuphophyllus borealis which differs by having a cutis of radially parallel hyphae for a pileipellis.

Dog-found in the Holiday Farm Fire burn area (burned in Sept 2020). Douglas fir forest with a few incense-cedars. Burn low to moderate severity. Spores larger than an Oregon black truffle's spores and refuse to squash free from the flesh. White latex when cut. Fruit body was very firm/dense.

~1 mm growths attached to dangling dead portions of a Salmonberry stem. I checked back on these a few weeks later and they remained unchanged in appearance. Currently stumped as to where to even start in narrowing down the ID -- any and all ideas would be awesome!

Grows loosely attached to bark on living Quercus garryana. Hymenium lacks pores but looks finely granular probably due to very large basidia (up to 50 microns beyond rest of hymenium and long sterigmata (10-20 microns long. Spores are amyloid, roughened, thick-walled with refractive content, average 15.9 x13.8 microns. They have a small pip. Another possibility is Aleurocystidiellum. No good species match.

Growing out of mango wood chips, gregarious,

Gills: free crowded, butter colored. Lamellulea: 3 series
Stipe: hollow, tapering upward from sub-bulbous squamulous base, stipe staining readily reddish orange and fading to grey brown.

Annulus present.

Cap: 15-70mm convex to pano convex, white with brown/Black concentric scales/dots radiating from central broadly mammillate apex. Margin crenulate/wavy and semi striate.

Odor: fungal with light smell of anise
Taste: mild/none

This observation is for the fungi.

Western Thatching Ant (Formica obscuripes) clinging to grass stem, with unknown entomopathogenic fungi. The two springtails are Entomobrya triangularis and appeared to be eating either the ant, the fungi, or both. Photos of the same ant one day earlier (with abdomen still intact) are here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99149670

Observation for the ant is here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99151521

Observation for the springtails is here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99151881