Cyathus novae-zeelandiae

Photo 1 shows all the fruit bodies in one herbarium collection. The specimens were dried, but the fruit bodies have a very low water content and so would look much like this when fresh, more so in dry conditions. In Photo 2 I show some spores at the lower right. The spores are smooth, thick-walled and colourless but have been stained here and two in particular have taken in the stain very well. The spores were abundant in the peridiole I studied and were ellipsoid, 8-12 x 5 -7 micrometres. In Photo 3 you see the white cord that attaches the peridioles to the inner wall of the fruit body (and the drawings are courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library). The fruit bodies that make up Photo 1 constitute the only herbarium collection from the local region. A look on Australia’s Virtual Herbarium shows Australian herbaria holding only 19 collections of this species, with Orbost the nearest collection locality to Canberra. If you see such ridged/plicate Birds nest fungi certainly add photos to Canberra Nature Map. However, it is likely that spores would be needed for a firm identification so, if you are legally able to collect specimens (ideally immature and mature) they would be a very welcome addition to the Canberra herbarium.

Again thanks Heino for the great information

It is possibly worth noting that the major Australian plant pathology & mycology herbaria of BRIP, DAR and VPRI also hold macrofungal specimens and I don't think these records are generally available to the public via Australia's Virtual Herbarium or the Atlas of Living Australia.

Kent Michael Priest from DAR told me that they were sending records to ALA. Though I don't know how comprehensive those records are.

That is interesting, when I go to the ALA webpage for DAR (https://collections.ala.org.au/public/show/co46) and click on records it comes up with the message: The New South Wales Plant Pathology Herbarium has an estimated 121,000 specimens and cultures.
The collection has databased 100.0 % of these (121,000 records).
No database records for this collection can be accessed through the Atlas of Living Australia." - For the few fungi I've searched for I've not had any DAR records come up in the search results.

Hmmm interesting! Thanks for that Kent. I'll try and follow that with Michael Priest or his replacement Jordan Bailey.

Good point Ken, but I imagine there'd be no great increase in records for this species.