Small orange ball fungus, on wood, with spiky scales.
|Cyptotrama aspratum. Image by James|
I wrote back to James as follows:
"Your little yellow/orange fungus, with the scales or spikes on the cap seems to be Cyptotrama aspratum.
As with many Fungi, it has a wide (in this case "pan-tropical") distribution, which in this interpretation, can include us, (despite our recent cold start to summer). It is absent from Europe and Northwestern North America.
In Bruce Fuhrer's "Field Guide to Australian Fungi" he says:
"caps to 50mm across, covered with distinctive pointed fibrillose scales when young,
which fall off as the cap expands.
Found on decaying wood in tropical and subtropical forest"
And it is here on a NSW website
Wikipedia records it too.