Family: Dacrymycetaceae
Orange Jelly Fungus
Mata, Penjor, and Pradhan
Mata, M., D. Penjor and S. Pradham. 2010. Fungi of Bhutan. National Mushroom Centre, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Thimphu, Bhutan.
Local name: No local name known
Edibility: Edible
Habitat: Scattered to clustered and growing on wood cracks or cot down stump.
Description: Fruiting body: Sessile to sub-stipitate, at first sub-globose, to cushion-shaped, soon deeply wrinkled. When fully matured it is up to 8 cm broad, abruptly narrowed and pallid at the attachment point, surface viscid, roughened with a hand-lens, yellow-orange, drying reddish-orange to reddish-brown, forming a tough, membranous film on the substrate. Context: Gelatinous, con coloured to the cap, up to 2 cm thick, tending to liquefy with age.
Comments: Dacrymyces palmatus is a yellow-orange jelly fungus that closely resembles yellow Tremella species, the common Witch's Butter. The two taxa are best told apart in the field by differences in habit and substrate. Tremella aurantia typically fruits with its host on hardwoods usually with intact bark. In contrast, Dacrymyces palmatus occurs on decorticated conifer wood and is not associated with Stereum species. Tremella aurantia has basidia that are longitudinally septate and ovate spores, while Dacrymyces palmatus has tuning-fork shaped basidia and multi-septate, curved-oblong spores.
Edibility: Edible
Habitat: Scattered to clustered and growing on wood cracks or cot down stump.
Description: Fruiting body: Sessile to sub-stipitate, at first sub-globose, to cushion-shaped, soon deeply wrinkled. When fully matured it is up to 8 cm broad, abruptly narrowed and pallid at the attachment point, surface viscid, roughened with a hand-lens, yellow-orange, drying reddish-orange to reddish-brown, forming a tough, membranous film on the substrate. Context: Gelatinous, con coloured to the cap, up to 2 cm thick, tending to liquefy with age.
Comments: Dacrymyces palmatus is a yellow-orange jelly fungus that closely resembles yellow Tremella species, the common Witch's Butter. The two taxa are best told apart in the field by differences in habit and substrate. Tremella aurantia typically fruits with its host on hardwoods usually with intact bark. In contrast, Dacrymyces palmatus occurs on decorticated conifer wood and is not associated with Stereum species. Tremella aurantia has basidia that are longitudinally septate and ovate spores, while Dacrymyces palmatus has tuning-fork shaped basidia and multi-septate, curved-oblong spores.