Favoritos de mgkoons

Small, clustered mushrooms found growing on the gnarled, seemingly burned stump ball of what appears to be one long dead and one living Madrona tree. Surrounding environment is on an island, high elevation forest of well spaced, mature conifers and thick, diverse moss blankets. Unique area. Mushroom is deep burgundy red, up to 3cm across the top. Very clean and uniform top. Stem is centrally attached, burgundy, and growing horizontally on nearly all mushrooms. Gills are closely spaced and deep burgundy as well, broadly attached/adnate. Never seen anything like this before. Last 3 photos show scraped spores from a print, put onto a dry microscope slide at 10/0.25 magnification. Spores appear ovate to slightly elliptic.

Found near a creek growing out of moss and mud. No trees close by.

Fruiting bodies range from 5mm to 13mm tall, caps are 4 mm to 6mm, with the stipe being 1mm to 1.3mm.

Spore measurements:

(16.2) 19.7 - 23.8 (26.2) × (3.4) 3.5 - 4.2 (4.4) µm, N = 9

Slight curve to the spores, other are more straight. Appears to be eight spored.

Asci measure at

(77.6) 77.61 - 89 × 8.3 - 9.8 µm,
N = 3

Amyloid, slight blue reaction in Melzers reagent. Asci are abundant throughout.

Paraphysis about 1.9 - 2.7 µm with the tip becoming slightly larger.

I collected this - need to check if it has gills, almost looked like it might not.

Was growing in a minimally vegetated alpine rocky sloe on a north aspect (vegetation is lacking due to late snow. Also a vein of serpentine in the vicinity.

found on the dry side of an evaporating bog.
Caps orange with a depressed center, lighter color margins.
11mm wide cap
35mm tall specimens
1-3mm wide stipe
Gills decurrent, widely spaced
found in soil, at the edge of a bog
in scattered troops
margins became translucent when I soaked it in water.

Found in saturated meadow. Population found in center of meadow. At most two would fruit together, otherwise there were just singlets. Two of the singlets were found within 10 cm of running water. I escavated soil on the two largest fruiting bodies and found no woody substrates. Soil was very moist but not soaked, even though most of the soil adjacent was soaked.Slight farinaceous odor. Stems very sturdy and with small white hairs going up the length. Most stems were darker towards the bottom and the mycelium appears to also be dark, but this could be staining from the soil
8 total fruiting bodies in the collection, one was split open to attempt culturing. 365 nm UV fluorescence = yellow on cap and stem hairs, which makes it a bit easier to find at night

Growing on either dog poop or the organisms growing initially on the dog poop. Organism is light and fragile, breaks easily stringy and almost brittle. Microscopy linked in comments.
photos taken multiple weeks apart, during different stages of growth.

In duff, mixed forest. Will do some microscopy tomorrow. Spore print unsuccessful - last two pics are smash mount of gill tissue. I am still a total newbie at microscopy so not sure if I captured anything helpful here.

Several dozens oaks in expansive stand along steep, southern exposed slope. Gravelly/sandy soil and decent recruitment. Many interesting collections from 1910 on this slope including Phacelia linearis, Plectritis congesta, Leptosiphon bicolor, Castilleja hispida, and Eriophyllum lanatum. Misapplied as “Seacowa Beach” in collections. Subdivided and sold as “Seacoma Beach” lots in the late 1920’s/30’s

Spores averaged (21.25-25) 23.6x14 (12.5-15) microns, in between the size ranges given for D. leucomelaena and D. crassitunicata, however no thick walled paraphyses were observed.
Specimen vouchered and sent to Alden Dirks for DNA.