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Noted on partially decorticated kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides) branch lying in kahikatea / nikau (Rhopalostylis sapida) dominated alluvial forest.

Fruiting body yellowish-orange with dark orange banding, distinctly cartilaginous, and flexible when fresh.

Description:

Pileus: 19-30 mm; campanulate to convex, later with uplifted to revolute margin; smooth cuticle, sulcate with smooth centre; covered with floccose-filamentose velum, white of colour; dark grey with paler margin and darker reddish brown centre; hygrophanous.

Lamellae: Not very crowded when expanded, free, very narrow; grey at first, later black; entirely deliquescent.

Stipe: 38-58 × 1,5-2 mm; central, cilindrical, slightly tapering towards the pileus; longitudinally striate, densely covered with fibrillose squamules, denser towards the base, there with very dense fibrils and slight fibrillose annular zone; entirely white.

Context: Very thin; white, brownish in the foot and the centre of the pileus; hollow in the stipe.

Smell/Taste: Smells earthy; no taste recorded.

Microscopy:

• Spores: Amygdaliform, warty, excentric apiculus, central germpore; reddish brown, hyaline.

• Measurements (1000x, oil-immersion, H2O, 1 sd=1,02 micron):
  8,16-9,18 × 5,10-6,12 micron.

Ecology: On small piece of burried broadleaf wood on very eutrophic, disturbed soil.

Light pink mold grew around an old specimen of Sclerencoelia pruinosa (on Populus bark).
Helicoconidia measure in H2O
(26.9) 28.1 - 34.4 (38.3) × (20.5) 20.7 - 26.4 (27.2) µm
Q = (1.2) 1.21 - 1.48 (1.5) ; N = 11
Me = 31.8 × 23.3 µm ; Qe = 1.4

Growing in bed of moss surrounded by Douglas fir trees (none real close) - and some small oak.
Seemed to be rooted in undetermined underground wood.
Might play into a Garry Oak Project should it be revived.
Unusual purple underside of mushroom.

Thanks to Tim M. and this nice post: https://bodiehillsplants.com/2016/02/20/floral-mimicry-in-the-bodie-hills/ I was able to identify the rust which I see in the yard every spring and used to be perplexed by it. Whatever these flies are appeared to be obtaining nutrients from it. They were swarming on it and actively licking the rust and were covering the plants all day long, daily. Other insects made only brief visits and realized it wasn't a flower.