The fruiting bodies of fungus have an unbelievable amount of diversity. With its charred, slender body and ashen-white tip, Xylaria hypoxylon is likened to the wick of a snuffed out candle.
In Mushrooms Demystified David Arora describes the fruiting body as “2-8 cm high, very tough, erect, slender, cylindrical or narrowly club-like but usually becoming anterlike (branched sparsely or forked at the tip) in age.” Its body did feel very stiff and tough to the touch which was different than what I expected. I tend to think of mushrooms as being mostly tender, so I was a little surprised by how sturdy and sinewy this one felt. The powdery white branch tips are the asexual spores and contrast beautifully with the black stalk.
David Arora describes its habitat as: “Scattered to densely gregarious or clustered on rotting logs, stumps, buried sticks, etc; widely distributed and common.” In this little patch, I found them on small sticks and on wood chips that were probably spread there during all of the chipping of branches after the ice storm a couple winters ago. This is a small mushroom and they blend in well. It took my eyes a little time to adjust to seeing them in all of the litter of fir needles, twigs, leaves, grass, and other vegetation on the ground.
Good luck on your quest to find them. I hope you are enjoying the fall.
Resources
Arora, David. Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi. Second edition, Ten Speed Press, 1986.
Trudell, Steve, et al. Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest. Timber Press, 2009. Timber Press Field Guide.
