2nd to last micrograph was taken of an unusual (sterile?) area of tissue, which had been a similar yellowish reddish brown as the other tissues, but turned a rich blue-green after being left on the slide for ~20-30 minutes.

Spores:

(8.5) 8.6 – 10.5 (12.1) × (4.1) 4.13 – 5.6 (5.8) µm
Q = (1.6) 1.63 – 2.4 ; N = 14
Me = 9.7 × 4.9 µm ; Qe = 2

8.96 5.58
8.67 4.69
8.62 5.30
9.74 5.33
9.92 4.10
9.72 5.17
10.03 4.13
9.35 5.30
9.87 5.17
9.96 4.44
12.09 5.76
10.52 5.06
9.43 4.39
8.47 4.78

Substrate: on bark and underlying wood of unk. hardwood (birch?) in stream bed

Habitat: mixed hardwood conifer forest

Ecoregion: Eastern Forest-Boreal Transition (NA0406)

Collectors: D. Newman & P. Kaishian

Collection #: CLBS020

Collected for the 2016 SUNY-ESF Ecological Monitoring and Biodiversity Assessment (EFB 202) Mycology Section

also seen at:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascomycetes/permalink/1903330053252523/
http://mushroomobserver.org/248258

NOTE: I cannot shrink my images down to 150KB to be uploaded here. they may be viewed at either of the two above links.

Hans-Otto Baral, 26-10-2017 23:08

Re : Phaeoheloitum sp.? - 248258

Water water!

I guess it is Phaeohelotium imberbe but I can hardly see anything under the mic.

Danny Newman, 27-10-2017 04:24

Re : Phaeoheloitum sp.? - 248258

what if I only have dried material? should I just let it sit in water, or is it safe to rehydrate with KOH first and then make a water mount? or must the material be absolutely fresh and living?

Hans-Otto Baral, 27-10-2017 09:35

Re : Phaeoheloitum sp.? - 248258

Only the latter is the option. KOH is toxic for any organism, you can try yourself. 

With drought-tolerant disocmycetes it is different, you can study them weeks and months later, but they grow exposed and are dry when it is sunny.

Danny Newman, 27-10-2017 15:49

Re : Phaeoheloitum sp.? - 248258

It sounds like there is no use in saving/drying any Phaeohelotium, Bisporella, or any similar fungus whose key features are only visible when living.  What does that mean for herbarium collections?  What purpose do they serve for such groups of fungi?

Hans-Otto Baral, 27-10-2017 16:29

Re : Phaeoheloitum sp.? - 248258

I am teaching this since 1992 (Mycotaxon 44: 333-390) and earlier. Of course, official herbaria do not like very much this message....

But you can see it this way: "vital charcaters", as I call them, are very valuable additional features and often even more valuable than what can be saved in a herbarium. But the taxonomy that we are doing based on morphology usually lacks aspects like cultural characters or DNA data which often give very unexpected insights in taxonomy. For instance, some species are collective species that can be divided only based on culture or sequencing. And herbarium material loses the latter option if older than 10-20 years and the former often within a few weeks....