Orbilia

The fruit bodies appeared in a suburban garden on some well-rotted staves from an old wine barrel, so presumably on oak wood. Those staves had been left in a small heap for some years. In photo 4 I show spores, ranging in length from 4-5 microns. In Photo 5 I show another view via microscope. This shows part of an apothecium, squashed under a cover slip. The upward point arrow points to two spores. The horizontal arrow points to one of the paraphyses (which you find in between the asci) and in this species the apices of the paraphyses are markedly enlarged. In the genus Orbilia the asci taper to their bases and may be forked at the base. The downward pointing arrow points to a forked ascal base. The microscope photos were of fresh material mounted in water (in one case after having being first immersed in phloxine, the red dye). The black apothecia in the macroscopic photos are of Rhizodiscina lignyota, a fresh crop from the same pile of staves that gave rise to this sighting: http://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Sightings/Details/3360812.