goldfinch

Thanks for your input Howard. I've been scouring the Phellinus pictures on iNaturalist, but can't see anything that quite matches. I'm not very knowledgeable about polypores (this find being just the 3rd poly I've ever tried to identify!) so I'm not sure how important things like colour variations are. Particularly the white patch at the base of some of them is throwing me off, better pictured below. It appears to have pores like the rest of the underside, but is a layer on top of the black part maybe 1mm thick. I'm wondering if it could represent new growth, with the black parts being old growth that has discoloured over time? I've noticed the white part does discolour brown/black with handling and if I run a knife over it, which might support that idea. I have posted this specimen on iNaturalist, but nobody has tried to ID it yet: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36277152

That certainly seems to fit the bill! Though I can't find any photos of specimens quite as dark as this one, particularly the pores. But it does have a number of the qualities described, e.g. the pore surface looking different shades of colour depending on the viewing angle. I know there is black locust in the area, too - I identified some seed pods there the other day, but couldn't find the tree. I wonder if I've been looking at its stump the whole time... It also seems that P. igniarius may fit, described as frequent in one of my books. Thanks once again for your help Dave!

Here's some better images. It's been drier the past few days, so they're looking much less black than before. Some of them have an off-white part on the underside near the base. I am starting to wonder if these are simply rotten in some way! Probably it's best to assume they're either too unusual or too damaged to identify That's very interesting regarding lucidum. I hope to find it some day!

Those Mushroom Observer posts do look very similar, particularly the latter one. It was sitting out overnight and dried out a little, and has lost its sheen and turned something of a browny-black. Around the edge it has stayed darker. The pore surface still seems to be black, but has a noticeable reddish-brown sheen to it in the right light. It certainly resembles your latter link, at least from the top. It didn't seem to drop any spores (though where it contacted the paper it left brown stains), so you could well be right that it's past prime. I'll return to that spot today and see if I can collect one in better condition, as there was several on the same stump. The frosts are coming in now though and I'm unsure how that will affect things.

Being fairly new to mushrooms, this one really surprised me. I thought I was looking at a pile of melted plastic at first. I can't find anything similar in my books, except perhaps Ganoderma lucidum's passing resemblance in terms of the lacquered look. Of course it does not seem to be that. The one I took was detached from the tree already but seems to be in good condition, it's spore printing now. Though I think it's pretty clear what the colour will be. Intriguingly the largest one has happily grown around some ivy, which I had to cut off to collect it. The pores are extremely small but seem to be uniformly circular, unfortunately I have nothing to magnify it with. Does anyone have any idea what I'm looking at? I'm still half convinced it's not even a mushroom and I'm being daft.

Great, thank you for your confirmation Dave! One thing I found interesting is that the dog seemed to love the smell of them, I took it as a good sign when I first found them

It's plausible you could confuse this with Clitocybe rivulosa I guess, if you really weren't paying attention

Possibly that last one has dried out a little? I took that particular photo some 24 hours after collection, intending to show there was no webbing even on the smallest one I had. The other photos were taken pretty much straight away. Looking through my collections there's no others with that appearance, so I'll just chuck it out. Attached are my spore prints, to my eyes it's a brownish off-white, or "skin-coloured", I wouldn't say it's the rusty colours you'd expect from the Corts. None of these were from that last one, though.

Found these guys on leaf litter in the UK, I understand the Lepista types can be pretty hard to tell apart. I'm pretty sure there's no signs these could be Cortinarius. Smells pleasant, cap is slightly sticky or tacky. I tasted a tiny amount cooked a couple of days ago and it tasted good (I should've waited until my spore prints finished...) I'll post a spore print once it's done.