Fluted Bird's Nest

Cyathus striatus

Forests, parks, gardens, among rotting wood and twigs. Summer, autumn.

Fruiting bodies small, 1–1.5 cm tall and 1 cm across, elongated-ovoid, the white covering overgrown with brown felty hairs. As the fruiting body grows, its upper part widens, the covering (as in puffballs) bursts, only ragged white shreds remain at the margin, and the fruiting body takes on the form of a beautiful small goblet with regular grooves inside as if engraved, between which lens-shaped peridioles with spores lie like little coins. Grows in groups and colonies. Inedible, fairly common, a good sanitiser of the environment.