In/near sphagnum.
Taste acrid.
Cuticle peels 0.6R-0.75R.
Spores 7-9 x 6.5-7.5 with warts mostly under 1.0 micron and mainly isolated but with some scattered connections.
Very good match for R. anisata via Kibby-Fatto key.

Endemic to the Appalachians and one of the only aquatic lichens, this species is uncommon and is indicative of high water quality. It looks like it belongs in a tidal pool. A Pennsylvania 'Watchlist' species.

Mycowalt told a neat story about this mushroom at the Ohio gathering a few weekends ago. Supposedly the ash bolete grows on honeydew from aphids that suck sap from the roots of ash trees.

Michael Kuo tells a similar story:

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/gyrodon_merulioides.html

I noticed a few things the other day that makes me suspicious of the accuracy of this story.

I did not find any aphids around these mushrooms, even though I examined quite a few of them. I only found the little black blobs shown here. Kuo says the blobs are sclerotia that surround the aphids, but if the aphids are completely encapsulated in sclerotia, then how can they bite into the roots? Furthermore, none of the black blobs I observed appeared to be attached to roots. On top of all that, some of these mushrooms were growing from rotted wood, several inches above the ground. Above-ground rotting wood is not the kind of place were one would expect to find aphid infested tree roots; I found neither aphids nor roots in the rotting wood.

I wonder if something more complex than the received story is going on here.

Growing underwater in the river at a depth of about a third of a meter. Location was almost the same as a sighting from the previous week
Spores: (10.2) 10.3 - 11.5 (12.1) × (6.1) 6.3 - 6.65 (6.7) µm
Q = (1.6) 1.64 - 1.8 ; N = 9
Me = 11.1 × 6.5 µm ; Qe = 1.7

11.53 6.39
10.62 6.46
11.33 6.68
11.09 6.51
10.21 6.14
10.33 6.43
11.54 6.27
10.83 6.55
12.13 6.65

There was one mushroom growing on one end of a short stick. The mushroom and the stick were entirely under water. This was just downstream from Kinzua Dam, in about 6 inches of water, and about 18 inches from the shore. Among rocks that protect it from the fastest water.

On 10-June-2023, A second mushroom was growing on the opposite end of the stick, also entirely under water.

13 Aug 2017.
Anchor Crossing, Bucks Co, PA.
Found on a standing dead Malus.
Noted a sweet, fruity smell.
ID courtesy of Django Grootmyers:
www.facebook.com/groups/MushroomIdentification/permalink/...

Echinodontium ballouii wasn't seen for 100 years until Larry Millman found it in an Atlantic White Cedar swamp. Larry took me to the site, (which I can't say where it is) and we found about a dozen of these again 4 years after the first visit.