Orange Jelly Spot - 4 January 2025

Above is a bright coloured fungus I found on a broken branch during my walk the other day. The branch had become detached from the tree and in order to take the photo above I laid it on top of some moss. I then decided that perhaps I needed a darker background for a better photo.

_{Close-up of the fungus on a black background.}

When I searched what this fungus could be called I had two options, one was ‘Witch’s Butter’ (Tremella Mesenterica). Although this option was interesting with such an appealing name, none of the photos I found were really similar to the fungus I photographed which looked much plumper with a more rounded shape reminiscent of a brain. I took the second option Orange Jelly Spot (Dacrymyces Chrysospermus). This definition was a bit too brief :

Dacrymyces chrysospermus is a species of jelly fungus in the family Dacrymycetaceae. In the UK it has the recommended English name of orange jelly spot;

To me the quote above is okay but not entirely conclusive whereas this one clarified what I was thinking:

Dacrymyces chrysospermus is a yellow-orange jelly fungus which closely mimics Tremella aurantia, the common witch's butter.

The key word there is 'mimics'. It was very hard to tell the two apart.

I also learnt that this mushroom grows on dead pine wood. When I read this I decided to make a mental note that from now on I’ll take more notice of the surroundings of what I find. Had I properly looked at the types of trees nearby I'd have been able to decide more quickly what type of mushroom it was. I could also then go back to that specific spot to check if there's any more of it.

This fungus is not rare and a simple search on You Tube trying to find further examples brought up the video below which has no words at all, just calming music :

I chose the video above because the examples given looked very much like the fungus I found, so it confirmed its identification.

Thank you for reading !