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Witch's butter on a mossy log

Tremella mesenterica Species

High confidence TM0004 27 November 2025 · 10:36 2 frames
IMG_3452#3452IMG_3454#3454

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

Bright yellow-orange jelly on hardwood in cold weather is Tremella mesenterica. Dacrymyces palmatus is a deeper orange and grows on conifer wood. Tremella is a parasite of crust fungi living inside the log.

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.

Found at Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary, Worcester, MA on Thursday, 27 November 2025 at 10:36. See the full walk for that day's weather and everything else recorded.

Others in this group

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