Home / Jelly fungi / TM0045
Orange jelly fungus on a log
Dacrymyces or Tremella Genus
Angles captured. Six frames along the log, from wide context to close-ups of individual masses.
Morphology
A scattered line of bright orange, gelatinous, brain-like masses running along the upper face of a fallen log, each 1–3 cm across, irregularly lobed and convoluted, glistening and clearly soft. No cap, stipe or gills — this is a jelly fungus.
Habitat & substrate
On a barkless, weathered hardwood log, associated with a white crust fungus on the same surface. Saprotrophic.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
Dacrymyces chrysospermus (long known as D. palmatus) (orange jelly, on conifer) and Tremella mesenterica (witch's butter, on hardwood, often parasitising a crust fungus) are the two candidates. The white crust visible on the same log is a point for Tremella, which parasitises exactly that kind of fungus. Host wood is a proxy, not a proof: the real separation is Tremella's parasitism of Peniophora crusts, the whitish attachment point of D. chrysospermus, or tuning-fork basidia under a scope.
To confirm this identification
Confirm the wood — hardwood or conifer. Dacrymyces chrysospermus (long known as D. palmatus) also has a whitish attachment point that Tremella lacks.
Found at Elm St area, Leominster, MA on Thursday, 6 August 2026 at 11:00. See the full walk for that day's weather and everything else recorded.
