Grifola colensoi (Grifola colensoi)

Black velvet stacks (Grifola colensoi) An inter-connected stack of black, very velvety fungi with creamy, toothy surface underneath. The tops were unusual each with a central depression containing crumbly tar-like substance. Each top part was about 30mm across and the whole stack was about 400mm tall. The colour in these pictures is wrong, or flattened by the flash and was actually very black (where it may appear brownish here) to the human eye. The forest was so dark that shots without flash were not an option.
At the base of a large eucalyptus (E.regnans) in a deep, wet gully. This is within a very tall damp eucalyptus based rain forest.
A rare species.. hope to find it again in better light. Australia,Fall,Geotagged,Grifola colensoi

Appearance

Appearing at the base of eucalyptus trees this polopore forms a stack of interconnected, black velvet rimmed cups with an off-white, toothy surface underneath and indented centres with a crumbly, tar-like appearance.

Distribution

Southern parts of Australia including southern Queensland and Tasmania

Status

Uncommon

Habitat

Moist eucalyptus forests

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Grifola+colensoi
http://eol.org/pages/1008360/overview

Taxonomy
Kingdom	Fungi
Division	Basidiomycota
Class	Agaricomycetes
Order	Polyporales
Family	Meripilaceae
Genus	Grifola
Species	Grifola colensoi

Photographed in
Australia