Cruciblum laeve     Bird's Nest Fungus 

Section through the fruitbody of Crucibulum laeve

In this "nest" you can see sections through eight of the "eggs".  There may have been more eggs but they were not in the plane of the cut.   Each egg has a thick outer wall and the pink stuff in the middle is thousands of tiny spores (basidiospores).    The fungus is growing on a piece of wood and you can see the annual rings and resin ducts in the piece of conifer wood on which the fruitbody is produced.   The eggs are distributed by a "Splash Cup" mechanism.  Falling raindrops with terminal velocity land in the cups and the splash transfers the energy from the drop to the eggs which are propelled violently from the nest.  Eggs can be shot of as far as six feet from the nest to new sites for growth.  It is actually more complicated than this but that's enough for now!   Click here for diagram