A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Trametes conchifer
Unique, tiny, cup-like fungi that resemble bird's nest fungus, but without the eggs. This fungus starts out looking cup-like, but it develops a cap as it matures. The "cups" start out with zones of color on the inside and a smooth, white undersurface. With age, a polypore develops as an extension of the cup. These fungi ranged in size from 2-6 mm.
Growing on a stick in a deciduous forest.
It's thought that the cup-like stage serves as a splash-cup apparatus for distributing asexual spores. Therefore, the mushroom extends its reproductive period by have asexual spore dispersal before producing sexual spores.
Spotted on Dec 3, 2017
Submitted on Dec 13, 2017
No Comments