This is awesome! Good luck.

I can't stand seeing those Cladonia mummies. Another frustrating one is the harvesting of large patches of Leucobryum for terraria etc. Really damaging to populations.

Sounds like an exciting find!

They do look like hamster ears.

Nice. This one was full of them. I couldn't find any normal tubers...

@bbsbryology.bsky.social do you also see these sometimes on tuber-bearing Bryaceae?

Definitely. They are very difficult to study using classical morphological methods, and getting DNA sequences and/or cultures would probably also be quite tricky.

B. scapaniae is closely related to B. gymnomitrii on Gymnomitrium species. Both fungi grow on the lower parts of host shoots. The larger ascomata of the latter make it slightly easier to spot. Both fungi are very rarely recorded.

Definitely seen similar drops before. Not sure if that fungus specifically, but it happens.

Hydnellum peckii can look like this, perhaps it is a place to start. Some mushrooms exude these syrup-like droplets.

Cheers David!

* yellow superficial antheridia. I think those in Riccia etc. are immersed but not sure about that.

Seems reasonable. I don't know it very well, but it is a spready species. The yellow antheridia seem to rule out other genera to me. It does look very strange in general, though! Good luck and hopefully sporophytes won't be needed for it!

Seems like a Fossombronia of some kind but not sure which.

Yeah, I was on one about a month ago and it was dreadful.

That looks good for it, to me.