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This was my first sighting of the fungus at this stage. Last season, someone on our local Fungus Group foray said they had been photographing it but I was unable to locate it. These images are of a single colony on a rotting (3 years) Sycamore log in a pile in our garden.
Xylaria polymorpha is an Ascomycete. The black surface is comprised of perithecia, inside which are asci, which contain the sexual ascospores. The white layer is of asexual conidia.
It is not impossible that this is a white mould but the appearance is about right. I have searched for images of this and have found some of fruiting bodies completely covered in the white layer, others with just the rounded tip white and others with just a small part of the base with it. I have found no example of the distribution as in my images.
This is supposed to happen early in the season and this was at the end of August, which is early, in terms of the fungus season, which peaks in the autumn.
EM-1 (aperture priority), Olympus 4/3 50mm f2 macro, 1/320 at f10 & 1/205 at f11, ISO 400, hand-held
The stereo is crosseye.
Harold
Harold Gough 2017
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