Xylaria polymorpha, "Dead Man's Fingers" is a common world-wide wood-rotting ascomycete. It is commonly found singly or in clusters on well-rotted wood with the bark fallen off, and involves a related group of Xylaria spp. distinguishable only microscopically. NB: J. Hubregtse (private communication) suggests that in Australia the species has usually been misidentified as X. polymorpha, a Northern Hemisphere species, but is actually the species Xylaria castorea, which has very different spores. Fruiting bodies to 80 mm high, irregularly cylindrical to club-shaped, often grooved or flattened, with a small black, rough stem. The dull black clubs are covered with fine pimple-like ostioles, small apertures from which the black ascospores are issued from small fertile cavities called perithecia; surprisingly, the tough flesh is white inside; spore print blackish-brown. There is a different stage wherein asexual spores called conidia are produced, and the surface is then white to bluish. Mortimer Picnic Ground, Bunyip State Forest, 2007.