Interesting: Birdnest Fungi Looks Just Like Birdnests !!!

I was working on by blog and saw this interesting topic that is "birdnest" but in another form call "Fungi".

The Birdnest Fungi Description:

Of the several types of fungi that grow in our yard, the most unusual looking is the birds' nest fungus (Cyathus stercoreus). This little mushroom grows on bits of wood (mostly the mulch that I put around plants) right out in the open. Of course, like almost all the fungi around here, it needs a good rain to get it to fruit.



When the fungus first emerges, it looks like fuzzy bulbs with a white covering over the top, about 1/3 of an inch in diameter. It then splits open at the top to reveal the "eggs," which are actually the peridioles containing the spores. If all goes well, these are knocked out of the cup by water drops and eventually release their spores. The open cups are about 1/2 inch wide so one must look closely to see the details.

In one more article the following description catch my attention:




Cyathus novaezelandiae is an example of a Birds Nest Fungus. In the photograph you can see the egg-like peridioles in each fruiting body. The cups of the Birds Nest Fungi have a somewhat leathery consistency and each peridiole has a hard outer casing, within which there is a mass of spores. The cups vary in size but generally are between 5 and 10 millimetres in diameter.





In the case of Birds Nest Fungi, the peridioles are knocked out of the cups by raindrops. When a peridiole lands somewhere - it sticks. In some genera of Birds Nest Fungi the peridioles have sticky surfaces, but that's not the case in the genera Crucibulum and Cyathus. In these genera the peridiole has a long tail and the end of the tail is sticky and adheres to any surface it comes into contact with. The photograph shows some tailed peridioles from a specimen in the genus Cyathus. Each peridiole is about 2 millimetres in diameter.


My advise to all, if U should come across these fungi, please see how similar they are with the white gold birdnests. Never to touch them,they might be poisonnous ?