warren_cardimona's Favorites

Growing on burnt stump in the 2021 Caldor fire burn scar, Eldorado NF
Large, hard fruit body with hundreds of tiny holes on exterior, dissimilar from pores. Internal flesh tough and leathery clearly layered with internal tissue pinkish and external white/yellow with a darker band of zonation. Exterior tissue pink/purpleish and tender when young, white/yellowish and becoming harder in age.
Smell of blue cheese, taste extremely bitter
Red KOH, better seen on young specimen 2nd to last photo
Interesting UV rxn seen in 4th to last photo
Couldn’t find spores under the scope, just hyphae from the interior and exterior tissue, seen in last 3 photos

Burned Quercus/Pinus dominant woodland (now shrubland post-burn), just west of Knoxville road near Lake Berryessa
Growing in soil and directly off fine roots in a hole leftover from a burned out root system
Brown pileus with a wavy margin. Lamellae white to cream colored, anastomosing, subdistant to distant, broadly attached to subdecurrent. Stipe short, fibrous, off-center
Smell indistinct

Stumped and delighted. What are these CONFECTIONS? The largest fruitbodies were 2mm to 2.5mm wide.

Note that the upper surface of the pileus has a dingy quality with fine hairs on top, At first glance they appear not to be stipitate, but there is clearly a stipe on many fruit bodies.

Also see obs fields

Under chamise; no scrub oak in the immediate vicinity.
Cap 1-1.8 cm, umbonate, deep chestnut color, velvety, scaly, rimose. Cortina attached to margins. Gills dull brown to rusty brown, adnate to 'toothed'. Stipe 2-3 x 0.2-0.3 cm, lighter than cap, scaly, snake skin pattern. Odor indistinct.
Spores rough, [9.4]9.6-10[10.4] x [4.3]4.5-5.4 µm