CLASSIFICATION
(SOURCE: NCBI database)

KINGDOM: Fungi
DIVISION: Basidiomycota
CLASS: Agaricomycetes
ORDER: Agaricales
FAMILY: Nidulariaceae

BIRD'S NEST FUNGI

Bird's Nest Fungus fruiting bodies look like... tiny bird nests with eggs in them, as shown below:

Bird's Nest fungus, Nidulariaceae

The "nests" are barely large enough to hold a BB. The little black "eggs," technically called peridioles, are at first covered by white membranes, but at maturity the membranes rupture, exposing the eggs to open air. Then raindrops splash the eggs out of the nest. These eggs contain spores which will germinate and form new fungal bodies.

Bird's Nest fungi are not particularly rare or exotic. The ones shown above turned up one morning growing in the old, wet ashes around a hermit's campfire in Mississippi!