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Common Bird’s Nest Fungus
Inedible 
Autumn 
Summer 
Winter 
These easily overlooked fungus look like tiny bird’s nests but are very common in Britain so it’s always lovely to be able to spot them.
| Mushroom Type | |
| Common Names | Common Birds Nest Fungus, Nyth Aderyn (CY), Kubecznik Pospolity (PL), Sárga Tégelygomba (HU) |
| Scientific Name | Crucibulum laeve |
| Synonyms | Crucibulum crucibuliforme, Peziza laevis, Peziza crucibuliformis, Peziza lentifera, Nidularia laevis, Cyathus scutellaris, Cyathis crucibulum |
| Season Start | Jul |
| Season End | Nov |
| Average Mushroom height (CM) | 0.5-0.8 |
| Average Cap width (CM) | 0.6-0.8 |
Fruiting Body
The fruitbody (peridium (singular), or peridia (plural)) is usually 0.5–0.8 cm tall and 0.6–0.8 wide; cup-shaped. It has two layers. The outer layer is pail brown, cinnamon to buff covered with numerous orange-brown hairs (called: tomentum), giving it a felt like look. The inner layer (endoperidium) is smooth, shiny and cream coloured. The peridium is initially covered with thin, fragile yellow membraneous seal (called: epiphragm). When the spores are mature, the epiphragm breaks opening up the fruitbody. When rain falls, it triggers the funiculi (singular: funiculum) and shoots out the peridioles with a range of a few metres.
Flesh
Very thin and soft at first, becoming fragile and papery with age.
Habitat
Grows in open forests (usually on the forest’s edge), parks and gardens, mostly in clusters on the dead wood of hardwoods, such as fallen barks, twigs, even on woodchips or other decomposed vegetation. Widespread all over the UK.
Possible Confusion
It only can be confused with other Bird’s Nest fungi.
Field Bird’s Nest (Cyathus olla) has silvery-white peridioles at first, later they turn to dark, metallic blackish grey.
Dung Bird’s Nest (Cyathus stercoreus) has dark grey peridioles, and they are smaller than Fluted Bird’s Nest’s peridioles.
Fluted Bird’s Nest (Cyathus striatus), pictured, is taller and more trumpet shaped with obvious striations on the inner surface (endoperidium). The peridiols are whitish with a slight grey colouring.
Taste / Smell
Inedible. Taste and smell indistinctive.
Frequency
Common.
Spores
Spores are ovoid-ellipsoid, smooth, thick-walled and colourless (hyaline), inamyloid. They are encapsulated in a lens- or lentil-shaped peridioles. The peridioles are 1–2 mm across, pale grey, and they have an attached small elastic string (called: funiculus) at their lower side, which helps them to spread the spores in large numbers once they are matured.
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