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Species Information
Summary: Tremella aurantia is a parasite of Stereum fruiting bodies, the unclamped hyphae of the Stereum often remaining visible amongst the clamped Tremella hyphae. Features include densely folded orange-yellow gelatinous fruitbody with white fleshy-fibrous interior core, and microscopic characters.
T. aurantia is found in BC, OR, CA, IA, LA, NC, NJ, SC, TX, (Ginns), Brazil (Roberts), Argentina, Brazil, (Lowy), and Armenia, Uzbekistan, (Raitviir)
Fruiting body: 2cm across, (often much larger), "firm-gelatinous, compact, densely folded (often becoming foliaceous)"; "bright orange-yellow when fresh, ochraceous when dried", (Roberts), 2-5cm across and 1-4cm high, fruticose-lobate with bladder-like undulant lobes, gelatinous; bright orange, (Raitviir), up to 8cm broad, 2.5cm high, externally tough-gelatinous, internally fleshy-fibrous, grossly cerebriform-lobate, deeply furrowed; bright orange-reddish when fresh (internally whitish), drying orange-brown, (Lowy), hemispheric to elongate, deeply rugose and plicate, the gelatinous outer part borne on a fleshy-fibrous, branching core; "brilliant orange to orange-yellow, drying ochraceous to bay", (Martin), spore deposit white (Buczacki)
Microscopic: spores 7.5-10 x 6-8 microns, broadly elliptic to elliptic, basidia "2-4 celled, 10-13 microns wide, widely clavate to subglobose or ellipsoid with a distinct stalk, most with diagonal septa"; hyphae in a gelatinous matrix, colorless, 1.5-2.5 microns wide, "thin-walled, with clamp connexions, intermixed with host hyphae, 4-6 microns wide, slightly thick-walled, without clamp connexions"; haustorial cells present and conspicuous, mostly spherical, 2-3 microns wide, giving rise to one or more thin filaments, (Roberts), spores 7-10 x 6-8.5 microns, oval-round with granular content; basidia 4-spored, ovate, 12-16.2 x 11.3-13 microns; hyphae thin-walled with sparse clamp connections, (Raitviir), spores 8-9.5 x 6.5-7.5 microns, nearly round, germinating by repetition; probasidia subglobose, metabasidia becoming ovoid to subclavate, cruciate-septate, 12.5-17.5 x 8.5-12 microns; hyphae with clamp connections, (Lowy), spores 9-10.5 x 9-10.5 microns, nearly round, slightly yellowish under lens, yellow in mass; probasidia 15-16 microns in diameter, at first clavate-elliptic, finally spherical, becoming cruciate-septate, epibasidia arising abruptly, up to 100 microns long, 2-3 microns wide except at apex where inflated to as much as 7 microns beneath sterigmata, (Martin)
Habitat / Range
a parasite of Stereum fruit bodies, (Roberts), on Stereum hirsutum complex, but reported on Alnus rubra, hardwood, less commonly conifer wood, (Ginns), fall, winter, spring, (Buczacki)
Similar Species
T. aurantia is distinguished from similar yellow Tremella species by the presence of unclamped Stereum hyphae, its comparatively small, stalked basidia, and its broadly elliptic to elliptic spores, (Roberts).
