What is my fungus???;-)

I found these lovely specimens in a wood chip pile in the Bay Area. Does anyone know what it is and if it is poisonous?

Thanks for any help you can give:-)

pawny

Another photo:-)

One last photo:-)

It looks similar to Auricularia auricula-judae

http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/image?query=Auricularia+auricula-judae

If you fancy looking through a lot of pics,

http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/skey.html

http://www.mykoweb.com/

http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/fungi/


http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species_index.html

I would say it is a cup fungi of some sort

http://herbarium.usu.edu/fungi/FunFacts/mushrm_pics.htm

http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/image?query=cup+fungi&isinit=true&x=35&y=15

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/morels/gallery_spring.html

The pezizaceae family looks close and grows on wood

http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1400005

Thanks Wallaby1. It seems closest to the pezizaceae, just not exact. Great start and great pictures!!! Loved the birdsnest one, awesome!!!:-)

pawny:-)

Hey wow thanks Wallaby!
This was growing in a pot of moss.

It's all fun! A good excuse to look through some of them again.

I came across some I have too.

Jerry I saw that one somewhere, and orange something?

I had the Auricularia auricula-judae, and another similar which looks something like a cup fungi

I think this must also be the Auricularia auricula-judae growing in my garden on an old treestump of an elder tree.

Jerry could this be yours?

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/otidea_onotica.html

bonitin, this one may be yours but the colour I'm not sure about, brown at maturity, the wrinkled mature middle and flattened, cupped younger shape,

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/peziza_repanda.html

My Auricularia auricula-judae

Now that I look at all the Auricularia auricula-judae on the google search, yours does look like some of those bonitin! They do vary so much.

Wallaby and Jerry, I think the problem, specially with this type of fungi, is that the same type can have so many different aspects, according to the developing stage, Mine got through very different stages. There first sign of life were tiny little pin pointed gum balls. I had no idea what they were at the time and they were of a purplish brown colour with a violet shine in sunlight, then they developed in to this:

picture of last year of the same fungi of my previous post:

The other problem is that pictures of the same fungus can differ so much even taken at the same time, depending on the angle, the light etc...
This is a picture of still the same fungus on the same log

another one of the same :

and still another of the same.

I'll stop here, but I have more...

Yerri, it is always helpful to find out the ID of a fungus if you photograph it on the spot and on the substrate you find it. This contains very valuable information sometimes crucial for identifying.

Walliby, I'm almost (one can never be absolutely) sure that mine is the auricula-judae,
because it is growing on an old log of the elder tree. and according to my fungus books that is the most likely place for it to grow.

The log yours is on looks to be at the same stage of decay as mine is, but mine is Sycamore. Such a huge variation!

Wallaby,

When I look at yours, it has a different texture on the surface, but perhaps it is in an older stage ?
My fungus book says that it occurs mainly on elder but sometimes on other decidious trees.

I wondered about that too, but I don't think it had that texture for a start. Perhaps the wood they grow on makes a difference?

It may be a diferent one, but I think the shape fits some of the ones I have seen.