I’ll definitely be doing more with a microscope, as I recently got one.

The reason your observation caught my eye was that we have been finding this on our winter walks in NYC. Today I did some microscopy on my collection and found that it was not H. Clavata but H. Intorta! The elaters turned out to be spikey, not smooth. Lesson: these need microscopy for certainty in many cases.

for your educational input!It’s a great way to learn.

whatcha mean with “Hoff”?

Ect… Have done a spectacular job with this site and serves a lot of purposes for different people….
But wikipedia serious? Cmon. Some of my Id’s are on that site. Guess that’s why the “Hoff” was such a hit in your neck of the woods

more as a huge compendium on fungus species worldwide and with a certain amount of seriousness since I have noted that they even take pictures for Wikipedia and the like articles.

Daring? This is a site where you guess mushroom pictures. You really can make quite a bit of drama from that?

Has anyone done micro on that one? It is a daring ID without it.
There are a whole lot of lookalikes not alone in Hemitrichia but even in other Trichiales.

As somebody who frequently crawls around in the woods peeking into damp crevices, and searching for bizarre life-forms, I have never seen this species in California, although it purportedly occurs across NA and around the world.

Anybody else seen it here on the Left Coast?

Here is another great photo of it up on MO, with a close-up of the little cups, spilling out fuzz…

http://mushroomobserver.org/image/show_image/134060?obs=63304&q=CM89

You are right. Although I have not observed this slime mold in its immature phase, Lincoff shows it in his Audubon Guide at that stage. Each of the “honeycomb” chambers is a ball with its upper portion missing, revealing the yellow strands within, the elaters. They agglomerate into the fuzz you observed. What’s left behind are the calyculi, which are like little cones standing on end. We have been seeing this myxo a lot this winter; it must like the cold weather.

Really nice photo!

you will know honeycomb shaped myxos when you see them (Trichia favoginea) Google them. But in your observation, you can blow up the image and look at the top fruiting bodies. You will notice a definite stalk, and thus not really honeycomb like except for topically.

…before the yellow fuzz pops out. This has the white covering like a sheet before the yellow fuzz appears. ??

Arcyria versicolor http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Arcyria+versicolor
and Trichia decipiens http://slimemold.uark.edu/... decipiens (Pers.) T. Macbr. (1899)&NameKey=2337F4CE-DAA7-48E8-91FE-316645B6DDC1&ImageKey=DA021CFD-65A6-4E0D-8F8F-6919B5A76EC5