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Witch's butter on a mossy log
Tremella mesenterica or Dacrymyces chrysospermus Genus
Angles captured. Two frames, one wider and one close, showing several masses along the same log.
Morphology
Several vivid golden-yellow to orange, gelatinous, deeply folded and brain-like masses, each 2–4 cm across, glistening and clearly soft. Growing directly from bare barkless wood beside thick moss cushions. A smaller mass is visible further along the same log.
Habitat & substrate
On a fallen, partly barkless hardwood log covered in moss, in leafless late-November woodland.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
The two orange jellies split on host and attachment. Tremella mesenterica is a parasite of Peniophora crusts on hardwood. Dacrymyces chrysospermus — long known as D. palmatus — grows on conifer wood from a whitish attachment point. The log's plate-like bark and the needle litter around it read coniferous at full resolution, which is why the original species-level call does not survive. Naematelia aurantia, a Stereum parasite on hardwood, is a third possibility not previously considered.
To confirm this identification
Identify the log. Conifer bark or resin ends it one way; a Peniophora crust on the same log ends it the other. Check the attachment point for white tissue.
Notes
27 November, and fruiting well. Jelly fungi tolerate freezing and rehydrate after thaws, which is why they turn up when nothing else does. This is the only cold-season record in the guide and a useful reminder that the season does not end in October. Corrected. Published at High as T. mesenterica on the belief the log was hardwood. The substrate call was the whole identification, and the substrate is not settled.
Found at Massasoit Rd area, Worcester, MA on Thursday, 27 November 2025 at 10:36. See the full walk for that day's weather and everything else recorded.
