BASIDIOMYCETES: Tremellales, Tremellaceae

Witch’s Butter, Tremella mesenterica or Tremella lutescens

Basidiomycetes, order: Tremellales, family: Tremellaceae

Width to 8"

Witch’s Butter is a yellow-orange, gelatinous mass, brainlike in shape with fleshy, curling lobes. It becomes very tough and hard when dry but may swell and become like an amorphous blob during wet periods. Spore print is pale yellow. The mushroom grows year-round in mixed deciduous woodlands, mostly on dead wood, throughout North America. It is edible but insubstantial, being mostly water.