Tremella mesenterica Retzius
Vet. Ak. Handl. 249. 1769.

Common Name: Witch's Butter

• Sporocarp

  Fruit bodies 1-7 cm broad, flabelliform to cerebriform, gelatinous, viscid to slippery when moist, hard and stiff when dry; pallid yellowish to yellowish-orange to orange in color, flesh gelatinous.

• Spores

  Spores 7-18 X 6-14 µm, subglobose to elliptical, smooth, hyaline to pale yellowish. Basidia longitudinally septate.

• Habitat

  Gregarious on wood, where it is parasitic on Stereum species.

• Edibility

  Edible, but without flavor.

• Comments

  Tremella mesenterica or Witches Butter is the name assigned to most collections of yellowish-orange jelly fungi in California. Dacrymyces palmatus, however is very similar and the two species cannot be reliably told apart without the use of a microscope. Tremella mesenterica has longitudinally septate basidium while the basidium in Dacrymyces palmatus resembles a tuning fork.

• Other Descriptions and Photos
  • Taylor F. Lockwood: Tremella mesenterica (CP)
  • Robert Mackler: Tremella mesenterica (CP)
  • Fred Stevens: Tremella mesenterica (CP) -- parasitic on Stereum
  • Michael Wood: Tremella mesenterica (CP) -- parasitic on Stereum
  • Michael Wood: Tremella mesenterica (CP) -- parasitic on Stereum
  • Boleslaw Kuznik -- Hunting for Mushrooms: Tremella mesenterica (CP)
  • Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month: Tremella mesenterica (D & CP)
  • R. A. Chilton: Tremella mesenterica (CP)
  • George Barron's Fungi of Canada (East): Tremella mesenterica (CP)
  • Pilze, Pilze, Pilze: Tremella mesenterica (CP)
  • National Botanic Garden of Belgium: Tremella mesenterica (CP)
  • Mushroom Observer: Tremella mesenterica (CP)
  • Arora (1986): p. 673 (D), plate 170 (CP)
  • Arora (1991): p. 242 (D & CP)
  • Breitenbach & Kränzlin (v. 2): sp. 29 (D, I, & CP)
  • Jordan: p. 372 (D & CP)
  • Lincoff: p. 385 (D), plate 566 (CP)
  • McKenny et al.: p. 188 (D & CP) [Tremella lutescens]
  • Miller: sp. 379 (D & CP)
  
  

  (D=Description; I=Illustration; P=Photo; CP=Color Photo)