matt227's Favorites

Fruiting on a fallen Douglas fir branch.
Fruiting bodies: Brain like, clear gelatinous creamy toned-but firm/hard(very unlike Dacrymyces sp).
Harvested 2 specimens.
Carefully removed a small portion of outer tissue and crush mounted on a glass slide in 3% KOH.
Spores: Globose to subglobose with many fused together and attached to long trailing jellyfish tentacle like strands/apiculus like projections.
Size: Very large.
Thoroughly dehydrated both specimens and bagged for herbarium collection/genetic record.
My coinciding Mushroomobserver observation below-

https://mushroomobserver.org/543871?q=1pZZn

Densely gregarious on cut and split firewood logs of Acer saccharum and Betula papyrifera left in a pile for a year

D. Malloch 18-10-23/01

In the herbarium of the New Brunswick Museum

Basidiospores 3.9-5.1 x 2.0-2.6 µm, Q = 1.72-2.11 (average[51]: 4.4 X 2.3, Q = 1.92)

Pictures:
1) Fruiting bodies on the end of a birch log
2) Fruiting bodies on the end of a maple log
3) Same log as #2 but photographed in the dark to show bioluminescence
4) Scan of fruiting bodies
5) Cross section of a fruiting body showing gills. The tips of the gills have cheilocystidia with entrapped gummy material. The blisters on the sides are developing masses of cystidia.
6) Cross section of gill in Windex showing cheilocystidia at the tip and the blister-like protuberance at the upper left
7) Cross section of gills in KOH + Congo Red showing cheilocystidia and gummy material
8) Cheilocystidia in KOH + Congo red. These have protuberances, but have not yet proliferated
9) Highly branched and proliferated older cheilocystidia
10) Surface tissues of the cap (pileipellis)
11) Hypha from the flesh of the cap in KOH + Phloxine showing the pink-stained cell contents and strongly swollen gelatinous cell wall
12) Basidiospores from a spore print in Melzer's Solution
13) Basidiospores from spore print in KOH + Congo Red

I've known this rabbit since it was very young, and it has also known me for all that time. Even so, it is entirely wild, so it was rather remarkable when it hopped right in front of me to nibble the fruits of Hydroctyle sibthorpioides growing below the Japanese Maple. Enchanting.