Scutellinia
The Eyelash Cup or Eyelash Fungus is a relatively common species of Ascomycete. It can often be found growing on (usually) wet earth/debris/wood. Unfortunately although it is easy to identify to genus in the field it is almost impossible to narrow that down to species within the group without resorting to detailed microscopic examination.
The spores can be globose through broadly ellipsoid right on to narrowly ellipsoid. The ornamentation, which should be examined on mature, ejected spores with the use of a stain like Lactophenol Cotton Blue can also be very varied. They may be spines, truncated spines, large to small warts and with or without reticulations.
The length of the hairs at the edge of the cup need to be measured and a note taken of the number of septa and also the type of "root" at the base of these hairs.
With this information and the use of a key most can be given a name with some degree of certainty.
An online key can be found on the home page of the Mid Yorks Fungus Group http://www.myfg.org.uk
Although this is aimed at European species most of the commoner species are included.
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You have me totally fascinated by these now! I was the only one in the car the other day excited that I had someone that I believed to be overseas help explain to me about the fungus I’d come across. I was going off of the last closest observation. Pretty neat! Now does it need to be down to the exact species to become research grade?
Thanks for your comments. I am glad to have encouraged you in looking at this fascinating group. I do sometimes feel that my replies are always negative “no it’s not or might not be scutellata”. Once I started looking closer I realized that less than 50% were scutellata/crinita. Not sure how the research grading system works.
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