A cup fungi, along the same lines as Sarcosoma or Caloscypha? Lots of genus names I can think of that are blackish cup fungi, but I'm not sure on this one. I'm currently leading towards an old Caloscypha fulgens.
Thanks, this will give me a start. After getting no where on my own, I thought I would turn it over to the big dogs for help.
A few questions that will help the ID. I can check my cup-fungi books when I get home from work. 1. how wide are these things? 2. is there a 'stem'? 3. If so, how long is the stem? you may will have to carefully dig down into the ground to find the base of the stem. 4. what are these growing on?
So, here is the problem. I was actually in this huge hurry, but was so taken by this fungus job, something I have never seen before that I had to take a couple of pics, and check it out knowing that I would go back the next day and inspect it more throughly. I went back several times to no avail. I have never found another one again. Anyway. It was very firm. I wanted to dig it up but there weren't any others, any where, so I left it undisturbed. So for the width, notice the cedar, pine needle and moss. It gives you a little perspective. No visible stem, the three jobs are crammed together. Under cedars.
Possibly Plectania melastoma or some related species. Cheers, Harri Harmaja http://www.fmnh.helsinki.fi/users/harmaja/index.htm
Beautiful! We found this on a foray on Galiano Island a few years ago: I consulted the species list from that trip and we'd ID'd it as Plectania melastoma, which seems correct. Seeing this makes me very excited that the season here is beginning! I'm curious whether your specimen had a stem or no too... but hey I see that I did not note that feature in my records of our Galiano specimen either <grin> cheers, -frog
