Melanomma pulvis-pyrius?

Echoing Andreas’ comments, because many ‘pyrenomycetes’ have tough carbonaceous exteriors they last longer than their active life. Your example is clearly empty; here is an example where you can see the jelly-like contents of a ‘live’ specimen, in this instance of Diatrype bullata on Salix:

[attachment=0]Diabul03.jpg[/attachment]
I come across more dead perithecia than active ones. The best strategy is to cut transversely across any prospective collection in the field with a pen-knife or similar (often a finger nail can suffice). Then check with a handlens. This will save time, effort – and coverslips!

Cheers

Chris

Hello,

definitely right was Chris says.

Sometimes when it is important to identify nevertheless, I try one (ONE!) preparation of the empty “crust” because you may find single spores that have been sticking to the interior wall – but that makes only sense when you have a species which can be identified by a singel spore, or (like in this case) when you just want to check wether your macroscopic determnation is correct and you know beforehand how the spores should look like.

best regards,

Andreas