Wood-ear (Auricularia auricula)

Hi mr Lincoff, first of all I'm pretty excited to find you here on ProjectNoah. You've got an impressive collection of ID's! Lately I've been watching pretty much all of the lectures and talks from the Telluride Festival youtube-channel. So to get to correspond to you from Holland, to me is a great honour! I really loved your talk about The Philosopher's Stone. And ofcourse I have seen your great film Know your mushrooms! I've been mushrooming since I could barely walk. Every night my parents had to read to me from the many mushroombooks they had to buy, to keep my hunger for fungal knowledge in control. Pretty much everything I do, speak, draw or see has to do with fungi! With the internet providing so many oppertunities to communicate with the rest of the world, via ProjectNoah, Google+ (and what have you not), I have been trying to broaden my network of knowledge about fungi all across the globe. From helping people to ID some mushies correctly, or at least give them direction of genera/family, to learning about mushrooms from all different parts of the world. This been said, I have seen quite a few Auricularia's (as they grow all around my appartement), and this is definitely not one of them. First of all, if you look closely, the color does not compare. Woodears tend to be more of a reddishbrown to sometimes allmost purple colored when dried. Also the hymenium of this fungus is more smooth and waxy, instead of folded/wrinkly and gelatinose. And finally the edges seem to crumble, which indicates a rather brittle texture. That is not the case with the more jellylike, rubbery texture of Auricularia, which most of the time has a smooth or waved edge. Therefore I propose the name Peziza sp. I hope to have been of any help! Looking forward to see more lectures online!
cheers, Michel.