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A
very small mushroom, a quarter to half an
inch across, bowl- or saucer-shaped, gelatinous, deep purple to wine
red, growing on rotting logs in moist areas in the fall. The
inside of the bowl produces spores, as seen in the lower right
photograph. The spores are a little over 20 micrometers (µm) long
(a micrometer is a thousandth of a millimeter), and divided into
multiple compartments. The spores multiply by budding off tiny
round spores (called conidia), which are also visible. Both the
larger spores and the conidia can grow into new wood-rotting fungi that
then produce the purple cups.
Native over much of North America. Likely common in Wildwood on decaying wood along
Connelly's Run. The ones pictured were on the end of a downed
tree across the trail from the Run.
Another species, A sarcoides, looks exactly like A. cylichnium at the macroscopic level, except that the cups tend to fuse into a brain-like mass over time,
while in A. cylichnium they
remain separate. They can be definitively separated at the macroscopic level as the spores of A. sarcoides are a bit less than 20 µm long and do not bud off conidia as readily. A. sarcoides is also common throughout North America and could be hiding in Wildwood.
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