Notes:
Growing on small hardwood sticks.
These immature fruit bodies are only about one week old. (I have been checking the small area daily for over two weeks.) I removed the outer/upper covering (lid) on one, and as seen in the one photo, beneath this was a white surface. The white material turned out to a gelatinous substance within which the white peridioles were embedded (as seen in photos). This seems to point toward genus Nidularia… except the eggs are white and these don’t look like any photos of Nidularia that I have found. I searched for cords connecting the peridioles to the inside of the nest, but found none.
My guess is these are Crucibulum laeve that seem to exhibit atypical traits on account of being immature. The fruit bodies seen in this observation were collected only a few hours after heavy rainfall.
The MO observation obs 98997 seems to validate my belief that my present observation represents C. laeve. Note how the sectioned/unopened fruit body seen in 98997 shows the peridioles embedded in gel.
I left a few additional fruit bodies to mature.
Fourth photo down shows a post-mature fruit body (presumably the same species) attached to the same stick one of the featured entities. Probably a left-over from last year. There’s also a peridiole stuck to the old fruit body, from a previous fruiting.