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Species Information
Summary: Features include yellow convoluted jelly-like fruiting body, and growth on hardwood sticks and logs. Tremella mesenterica is edible, and is sometimes added to soups, (Lincoff). It is widespread and common, (Arora).
Distribution includes BC, WA, OR, ID, and also AB, MB, NF, NS, ON, PQ, YT, AZ, CA, CO, GA, IA, LA, MA, MI, NC, NY, OH, and WI, (Ginns), Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, (Breitenbach), widespread in Soviet Union (Raitviir), and BC, CA, Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland, (Wong).
Fruiting body: 1-10cm, flabby or gelatinous when fresh, when old or wet "often bloblike or amorphous", drying bone hard; "clear yellow to golden-yellow to bright orange, paler (to nearly colorless) when old or waterlogged"; no stem, (Arora), 2-5(10)cm x 2-4cm, brain-like when fresh, young, and moist, later with irregular clustered folds consisting of several distorted lobes, flesh gelatinous and soft; pale to gold-yellow, more rarely whitish; more or less shiny, upper spore bearing surface smooth, (Breitenbach), gelatinous, sessile, cerebriform [brain-like] when young, becoming gyrose to foliaceous at maturity, 0.5-0.8cm x 0.3-0.7cm in individual fruitbodies, anastomosing up to 10cm x 5cm; varying from almost colorless to white to light yellow, yellow, yellow-orange, or orange, drying red to orange or brown; spore deposits vary from colorless to yellow to orange, (Wong)
Microscopic: spores 7-18 x 6-14 microns, elliptic to nearly round, smooth; basidia longitudinally septate, (Arora), 10-16 x 7-8 microns, oval, smooth, inamyloid, colorless, also conidia 3-4.5 x 2.5-3.5 microns, subglobose-oval, smooth, colorless; hypobasidia 20-25 x 12-17 microns, oval-clavate, longitudinally septate, with 4 epibasidia; hyphae 1.5-3 microns wide, sparsely septate, with clamp connections, gelatinized, (Breitenbach), spores form on outer surfaces, spore deposit yellowish, (Lincoff), spores (9.5)10.5-16 x (7.5)8.5-10.5(11.5) microns, broadly elliptic, obovate, or nearly round, developing asynchronously, germination by budding, by repetition, or by conjugation tubes; epibasidia cylindric, 2-3.5 microns wide, enlarging apically up to 5-8.5 microns, length variable, up to 120 microns; probasidia (19)20-24(25) x (14.5)15.5-20(21) microns, initially subcylindric, narrow clavate to obovate, or fusiform, then becoming broadly elliptic, obovate to nearly spherical, longitudinally to obliquely septate, white to yellow, with basal clamp connection; hymenium consisting only of conidia, of both conidia and basidia, or only of basidia, basidia forming under conidial layer if conidia present; conidia 3-5 x 2-3 microns, elliptic, broadly elliptic to nearly round, light yellow to orange, evidently subtended by clamp connection, borne on light yellow to orange, branching, septate conidiophores; dikaryophyses absent; internal hyphae 2-3 microns wide, loosely interwoven, smooth, clamp connections present throughout, (Wong), conidial state is often borne in cool periods in fall, winter, and spring, (Bandoni), spores in Costa Rica specimens have smaller spores (e.g. 11-13.5 x 8-10 microns, 9-12.5 x 7.5-8 microns), than many Swedish collections (e.g. 13-15 x 9-10 microns)
Habitat / Range
"solitary or in groups on hardwoods sticks, logs, etc.", (Arora), "associated with Peniophora aurantiaca, P. cinerea-like species, and P. incarnata, but typically reported as lignicolous on angiosperms and gymnosperms", apparently mycoparasitic, (Ginns), single, on dead wood of hardwoods, mostly branches and trunks lying on the ground, (Breitenbach), on hardwood, especially dead attached branches, less often on fallen trees or branches, rarely reported on conifer wood, usually associated with fruitbodies of other Basidiomycetes, especially Peniophora spp., (Wong), spring to fall (Bacon)
Similar Species
Tremella mesenterella is similar (and may grow with T. mesenterica): T. mesenterica has ovoid spores with length approximately one third greater than the width, whereas T. mesenterella has round or nearly round spores, and fruiting bodies of T. mesenterica may reach greater size, (Bandoni). Dacrymyces chrysospermus has a white point of attachment and grows on coniferous wood, (Lincoff).
