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Yellow brain

Tremella mesenterica

Description:

The fruitbody of Tremella mesenterica is usually golden yellow and gelatinous when damp, turning orange and shriveling to a tiny fraction of its former size during very dry weather. It is initially disc-like, the fruitbody soon develops irregular contortions only very vaguely resembling the structure of a brain. Individual fruitbodies grow to between 2 and 8 cm across.

Habitat:

Yellow brain grows on dead timber from all kinds of broad-leaf trees, but it is particularly common on fallen branches of birch and hazel. Occasionally this colourful jelly fungus occurs also on decaying gorse wood. It is not the dead timber that Tremella mesenterica feeds upon but crust fungi that themselves have been feeding on the wood. Yellow brain must therefore be classed as a parasitic rather than saprobic species.

Notes:

Spotted in Wechelerveld in rural area of Deventer, Holland. (sources:see reference)

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Jae
Spotted by
Jae

Deventer, Overijssel, Netherlands

Spotted on Nov 6, 2014
Submitted on Nov 6, 2014

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