Black bulgar or Witches' butter

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.

Fresh fruit bodies are jelly-like and rubbery, button-shaped or pressed flat at first and attached at a narrow point, sometimes with a short stalk-like base, then top-shaped or almost cup-shaped, usually 1 to 5 cm across. They grow singly or in groups and sometimes partly fuse.

They're dark grey to brownish grey, later brownish black, almost black. The upper surface is uneven and dotted with small black pegs.

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.

The spores form on the pegged upper surface. The underside is sterile and felty, covered in dense blackish hairs.

The spore print is white.

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

There's no true stem: it's attached to the bark at a narrow point or by a short base.

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

The flesh is jelly-like, soft to fairly firm, watery olive-grey to greyish brown. In dry weather it shrinks to a thin black crust, then swells again after rain.

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

The smell is indistinct.