Thank you David. This all stems from a bit of a lack of understanding on my part, I am a Brit now based in NZ and noticed armillaria symptoms on an old Tulip Tree. I also noted that some of the extensive decay cankers had what looked like old black Kretzschmaria fungal crusts. Yet kretzschmaria is not found in NZ but I mentioned it as an outside possibility. Turns out the nearest case is just across the Tasman in Newcastle so its occurrence is not entirely impossible especially as its so difficult to spot. The middle photo shows a cross section from the tree, which I personally think looks just like Kretzschmaria rather than armillaria. As you say the black marks seem to be chemical rather than from rhizomorphs. The lower photo is armillaria novae-zelandiae we believe, you can pull the black rhizomorph off. I guess it is possible that the NZ honey fungus has the same characteristics as Kretz but I personally think its unlikely as the two photos show. I have other photos of what I think are ascospores which I will upload. The top photo is from an Acer that also seems to have similar kretz characteristics. I appreciate your help identifying my photos if possible, I realise that NZ fungi are generally different and will have different strategies, perhaps. The Tulip tree had vascular issues including noticeable strangling resulting in upper canopy branch failure, smaller leaves etc. It had also lost a few larger limbs in the recent past, just missing the house below. It is a multi stemmed tree from 6m and each scaffold had a large canker up to 6m in height all of which had copious small fungal fruiting bodies below the sloughed bark. Unusually the tree had advantigous roots at 6m into the fork crutch which was full of rotted leaves and now soil. There was no evidence of fungal fruiting bodies in the overly hard landscaped root zone. I hope this is of interest.
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