Eyelash Cup

The Eyelash Cup is one of the most instantly recognisable of the small cup fungi, a flat scarlet to orange-red disc only a few millimetres across whose margin bears a palisade of stiff, dark brown to black bristles. Seen from above with a hand lens, the ring of hairs around the bright disc gives exactly the impression of a lashed eye, which is the source of both the common and the scientific name (scutellata meaning 'like a small shield').

Scutellinia is a genus in the family Pyronemataceae, within the operculate cup fungi (Pezizales). Members of the genus are separated from one another largely by hair length, hair root structure and spore ornamentation, so S. scutellata in the strict sense is really the best-known member of a species complex. What all of them share is the combination of a brightly coloured, sessile disc and marginal setae.

Its distinctiveness lies in the contrast: almost nothing else in temperate woodlands pairs a fire-coloured disc with a visible dark fringe. Even when the disc has faded with age, the hairs persist and remain the key character.

Fruiting body

A sessile, shallow to almost flat disc 2–10 mm (occasionally to 15 mm) across, at first cup-shaped and later expanding until it is nearly plane or slightly convex. The upper (fertile) surface is smooth, moist-looking and bright orange-red to scarlet, sometimes fading to orange or brownish-orange with age. The underside is paler brownish and closely attached to the substrate, without any stalk.

Margin and hairs

The diagnostic feature. Around the rim, and scattered thinly over the outer surface, stand rigid dark brown to blackish hairs (setae) up to about 1 mm long, tapering to a point and with a multi-forked or branched base where they are anchored. They project outward and slightly upward and are visible to the naked eye as a dark fuzzy rim, and are unmistakable with a lens.

Flesh and spore print

The flesh is extremely thin, soft and brittle, pale reddish-orange, without any notable colour change when broken. Spores are released explosively from the disc in a fine cloud; a deposit is whitish, the spores themselves being colourless, elliptical and covered with low warts. The species grows gregariously, often with dozens of discs crowded along a single wet log.

The Eyelash Cup is a fungus of consistently wet places. It fruits on very damp, well-rotted hardwood — fallen logs, submerged branch ends, boardwalk timbers and sodden woodchip — and equally often on bare, waterlogged soil at pond margins, on stream banks, in ditches, in wheel ruts and on flushed clay slopes. It favours shaded ground where moss and liverworts are already established.

Fruiting runs from late spring through to late autumn, peaking in wet summer weather, and in mild oceanic climates discs can be found in almost any month. The species is cosmopolitan, recorded across Europe, North America, Asia, Australasia and beyond, and is one of the commonest small ascomycetes wherever damp deciduous woodland occurs.

Scutellinia scutellata is saprotrophic. Its mycelium runs through waterlogged, already-decayed wood and through the humus-rich upper layer of wet mineral soil, breaking down cellulose-rich residues in an environment where competition from larger wood-rotting fungi is limited by saturation. It is frequently a follower rather than a pioneer, appearing on wood that other fungi have already softened.

Spores are produced in operculate asci that open by a hinged lid and fire the spores clear of the disc, an efficient dispersal mechanism for a fruiting body sitting only millimetres above wet ground. The marginal setae are thought to help shed water and to shelter the fertile surface, keeping the discs functional in the very damp habitats the species specialises in.

Other Scutellinia species are effectively identical to the naked eye; separating them relies on hair length, hair base branching and spore ornamentation under a microscope, so a field record is often best left at genus level. Cheilymenia species, common on dung and manured grassland, are similar orange discs with hairs, but their setae are usually paler brown and their habitat is dung rather than wet wood.

The Orange Peel Fungus (Aleuria aurantia) is a much larger, wavy orange cup on bare compacted soil with a completely smooth, hairless margin. Melastiza chateri is a small orange disc with only short, inconspicuous brown hairs that do not form a visible fringe. Anthracobia species on burnt ground are smaller, more brownish-orange and have short scattered hair tufts rather than a clean eyelash rim.