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Tag Archives: Yellow Brain Fungus

Wobbling no more

03 Friday Mar 2023

Posted by sconzani in fungi

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British fungi, fungus, Tremella mesenterica, Yellow brain, Yellow Brain Fungus

I was hesitant with my identification of this fungus at first as previous examples I’ve seen have been yellow and jelly-like – poke them and they wobble.

Then I read, on the First Nature website, that ‘in dry weather this fungus becomes a hard orange bracket’. Also, this particular fungus feeds on other fungi, crusts in the Peniophora genus, and I couldn’t see any crusts on this branch. First Nature explains it again:

Very little or none of the Peniophora may be visible; this is because Tremella mesenterica feeds on the mycelium of the Peniophora fungus, and that can be deep inside the timber rather than on its surface. The fruiting body of the crust fungus does not even have to be present, therefore, and so it may look as though Yellow Brain is feeding directly on the host wood.

So, reassured by the website’s explanations, I believe I can confidently say this is Yellow brain fungus (Tremella mesenterica). Happy Fungi Friday!

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Yellow brain fungi

08 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by sconzani in fungi, winter

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British fungi, Tremella mesenterica, winter colour, winter fungi, Yellow Brain Fungus

Yellow is such a cheery colour, and the sight of these bright yellow fungi during a walk on a particularly grey, gloomy day certainly brought a smile to my face.

210108 yellow brain fungi (1)
210108 yellow brain fungi (2)

Although there are two very similar-looking, yellow, jelly-like fungi, I’m 99% sure these are Yellow brain fungi (Tremella mesenterica) because they are parasitic on the Peniophora species of crust fungi (rather than the Stereum hirsutum fungi, on which the other yellow fungi Tremella aurantia are parasitic), and you can, hopefully, just make out the Peniophora fungi (the lilac-grey crust on the wood) in the photo immediately below.

210108 yellow brain fungi (3)

I explained more about these two fungi in my blog Golden ears and Yellow brains, February 2017.

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Golden ears and Yellow brains

10 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by sconzani in fungi, nature

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

fungus, Golden ear fungus, jelly fungus, Tremella aurantia, Tremella mesenterica, Yellow Brain Fungus

170210-tremella-mesenterica-yellow-brain-3
170210-tremella-mesenterica-yellow-brain-1

These two fungi may look different but they may actually be exactly the same – in theory, it should be possible to tell without resorting to a microscope. There are two possibilities: Tremella aurantia (known to the Americans as Golden ears; the British Mycological Society hasn’t assigned it a common name), which is parasitic on the fruit bodies of the Hairy curtain crust fungus (Stereum hirsutum), and Tremella mesenterica (Yellow brain), which is parasitic on the mycellium of the Peniophora species of fungi. However, those Peniophora fungi are not always easy to spot as the Tremella may have smothered the lot, so identification can still be tricky.

I’ve only knowingly seen Golden ears the once and, if you take a look at the top right corner of my image (below), you can just spot the brackets of Hairy curtain crust that helped me confirm what it was. (So, the two photos above and the very bottom photo probably all show Yellow brain but I can’t be 100% certain.)

170210-tremella-aurantia-golden-ear-1

The word Tremella means trembling, a reference to the jelly-like constituency of these fungi; aurantia means orange coloured or golden; and mesenterica joins two Ancient Greek words together: meso means middle and enteron means intestine, so maybe the title of this post should really be Golden ears and Yellow intestines. Ew!

170210-tremella-mesenterica-yellow-brain-2

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Fungi Friday: Not just a park bench

25 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by sconzani in fungi, nature, parks

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Dacryomyces stillatus, Orange Jelly fungus, park bench, Tremella mesenterica, Yellow Brain Fungus

This looks like an ordinary park bench, right?

161125-roath-park-bench-1

But, if you look closer …

161125-roath-park-bench-2

No, closer …

161125-roath-park-bench-3

Then you will see that, even here, on a presumably treated and processed and painted (or stained) piece of wood, fungi are active.

161125-dacryomyces-stillatus-orange-jelly
161125-tremella-mesenterica-yellow-brain

The bright orange blobs are the aptly named Orange Jelly fungus (Dacryomyces stillatus) and the washed-out yellow blobs are probably Yellow Brain Fungus (Tremella mesenterica) – I say probably because there’s another fungus that looks a lot like this one, Tremella aurantia, but it’s parasitic on a third fungus, Hairy Curtain crust (Stereum Hirsutum), which does not appear to be present here – but who knows what’s lurking inside the wood?

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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