Black bulgar or King Alfred's cakes

Fruiting bodies 1.5–4 cm across and 1–4 cm tall. Young ones are rounded and closed, like black buttons or drops of resin; with age they open into shallow cups or discs. The outside is dark brown and rough; the inside (where the hymenium is) is smooth, black and shiny.

The fruit body, called a stroma, is hemispherical or cushion-shaped, 2 to 8 cm across, and attached firmly to the wood by a broad base, with no stem. Several often fuse into a larger mass.

Young stromata are reddish brown to chestnut, at first dusted with pale asexual spores. Mature ones are black, matt at first and later almost varnished and slightly shiny. The surface is smooth or finely cracked into a network, and under a hand lens you can see tiny bumps where the spore chambers open.

Smooth, forming the shiny black upper surface of the cup. The spore print is black, and that's what "stains" your hands. Spores dark brown, 12–14 × 6–7 µm, smooth.

There are no gills or pores. The spores ripen in tiny chambers just below the surface and are shot out, leaving a black deposit on the wood up to about 3 cm around the ball.

Cut one open to see the key feature: alternating dark brown and silver-grey concentric bands beneath a thin black outer layer. The spore print is black.

Practically no stem. The fruiting body is sessile, attached to the wood by a broad base.

There's no stem. The stroma sits directly on the wood on a broad base.

Flesh rubbery, gelatinous, blackish brown. Not firm or brittle, but rather elastic. Doesn't change colour when cut.

Inside it's dense and fibrous to woody, with concentric bands. Old stromata become light, brittle and charcoal-like.

No distinct smell. Taste indistinct; we don't taste it, since the mushroom is inedible.

The smell isn't distinctive and doesn't help with identification.