King Alfred's Cake

Description:

Ball or cylinder shaped fruitbodies, roughly the size of a squash (up to a tenis) ball, about 5cm across. Unlike my previous spotting, these were a bit smaller and darker; pinkish-blackish coloured, and appeared deposited on a log, not incrusted. Moreover, these were easy to cut through - and cuts present these typical blackish concentric layers (pics 4 and 5).

Habitat:

Members of Daldinia genus are saprophytes, important in decomposing fallen and discarded wood. Here, I found them on forest floor, on dead and decaying wood, on large trunks of fallen trees. The forest in question is another lowland broadleaved forest, mainly oak and beech, in Geneva lake valley on edges of an urban center

Notes:

Pics 3 to 5 were taken back home, as I wanted to slice it and photograph it using some magnifying glass on my camera. Also known as Cramp balls or Coal fungus.