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Species Information
Summary: {See also Common Bird''s Nests Table.} Features include the flower-pot to mug shape with the mouth turned out; gray or gray brown shaggy exterior; white to yellowish or brown smooth interior; numerous gray to light brown eggs in a gelatinous matrix without a cord; and growth on rotting wood, berry canes, herbaceous debris, or soil. New fruitbodies may grow on top of old ones.
Nidula candida is found in WA, is apparently abundant in OR, is seldom as abundant in BC as N. niveotomentosa, and is also found in AK, (Brodie). It also occurs in CA (Arora). There is a collection from ID at Oregon State University.
Nest: 0.3-0.8cm across at top when mature, 0.5-1.5(2)cm high, cylindric or cushion-shaped becoming mug-shaped or flowerpot-shaped when mature (with vertical sides and a flaring mouth), rim more or less circular, wall tough and persistent, nest covered at first by lid, (Arora), 1-1.5cm high, having a wide-flaring mouth, (Brodie), 0.3-1cm wide, 0.5-2cm high, mug-like, with vertical sides and wide, flaring mouth, (Lincoff)
Outer Surface: "whitish beneath a gray to brown or dull cinnamon scurfy or shaggy layer that covers at least the basal portion and the lid", (Arora), when fresh gray or even light wood-brown, may be bleached when old; shaggy, (Brodie), gray-brown to ocher; scurfy, (Phillips), gray to light brown; shaggy, (Lincoff)
Inner Surface: white to yellowish or brown; smooth, (Arora)
Microscopic: spores 6-10 x 4-8 microns, elliptic to nearly round, smooth, colorless, (Arora), spores 8-10 x 4-6 microns, elliptic; eggs with a thin tunica (Brodie)
Habitat / Range
in groups, "on rotting wood, berry canes, and herbaceous debris in gardens, woods, along streams, etc.", in California common in late fall and winter or even spring, but empty nests persisting for months, (Arora), on old berry canes, rotten wood, or rich soil, June to October, (Phillips)
Similar Species
Nidula niveotomentosa has smaller fruitbody (mostly 0.4-0.6cm high) that is snowy white (may be tinged yellow or brown when older) and less shaggy than N. candida, with smaller eggs 0.05-0.1cm across, (Brodie). N. niveotomentosa is like a slender mug, 0.4-0.6cm high, covered with whitish velvety tomentum, whereas Nidula candida is like a flower pot, 1-1.5cm high, covered by gray or gray-brown shaggy tomentum, (Fay(1)).
