sexy fungi

Microglossum rufum

Apricot Jelly (Tremiscus helvelloides) - Syniad Photography

Brauner Bovist

by noirerora

Rotkäppchen

kleiner Glückspilz

A fungus resembling nails or cigarette butts

No, no one has used this trunk as an ashtray, actually those like cigarette butts are the cylindrical fruiting bodies of an ascomycete fungus of the species Camillea leprieurii. It is is a fungus dependent on rainforest trees for survival but can only be easily detected when observed growing out of dead branches.

Camillea leprieurii is familiar to mycologists surveying rainforests in South America and is strange owing to its fruiting structures taking two forms. The charcoal-stick form is the most frequently noted, which has black pencil-like structures (as seen in the images above), but this fungus also grows immersed in dead wood with only its uppermost surface visible. 

This bizarre species is widely distributed in the rainforests of South America. Camillea species are thought to live within healthy living trees (so are called endophytes), with their microscopic colonies lying dormant until the tree dies naturally. They are then in an ideal position to grow actively using nutrients from the dead wood, out-competing fungi without endophytic stages and thereby recycling the tree to fertilise the soil for its seedlings. The fungus and trees are thus entirely dependent on each other for survival.

[Fungi - Ascomycota - Sordariomycetes - Xylariales - Xylariaceae - Camillea - Camillea leprieurii Mont. 1849]

Reference: [1]