Witch’s butter

[TREMELLA MESENTERICA]

Looking like brightly colored marmalade splattered on forest logs, witch’s butter at first glance might be dismissed as a formless blob. Nothing could be further from the truth because this unique fungus has a fascinating life cycle. Consisting of a mass of threadlike hyphae that secretes protective orange jelly, witch’s butter invades rotting hardwood where it parasitizes another fungus called false turkey tails. In early winter it produces millions of asexual spores, which resemble a fine powder on the fungi’s surface, but by early spring it begins blasting sexual spores from internal fingerlike projections. If one of these sexual spores lands on a suitably wet site, the spore will send out yeast-like cells that percolate into the soil in search of hosts. But if the spore lands by mistake on inhospitable terrain, it forms a shoot and spits out a replica of itself -- essentially jumping ship -- to keep searching for a new home.

NATURAL HISTORY

With a scientific name that means “trembling guts,” witch’s butter might seem as fragile as a bowl of Jell-O, but in fact it’s remarkably resilient. It can survive for months without water, drying into a hard ball, but within two hours of being rewetted in the first rain it reconstitutes and begins producing spores.

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

Widespread in forests of California, appearing after rain, but quickly drying out; bright orange and up to 4 inches wide with many brain-like folds.