Common Jellyspot - Dacrymyces stillatus

We've been having beautiful weather here in Cardiff, and whilst it's been lovely to sit and eat lunch in the garden, it hasn't been the best conditions for mushrooms. So, when it rained for an entire day yesterday, I was excited at the prospect of finding more fungi. And as I ventured out with a friend today, fungi were exactly what I found.

Dotted around on dead wood were lots of Common Jellyspot, or Dacrymyces stillatus.

Yellow or orange in colour and shaped like round blobs, Common Jellyspot grows on dead wood throughout the year. As the name suggests, if you touch it, it has a jelly-like consistency.

It is quite common for multiple blobs to fuse together to form bigger, more abstract shapes.

Characteristics

Habitat: On dead wood, including fences
Fruit body: 2-5mm across, yellow to orange in colour, in small blobs which often merge. Gelatinous to touch but harder when dry.
Spore print: White
Season: All year
Edibility: Inedible

Now you know what it looks like, you can always be ready for this jelly!

Disclaimer: I am not an expert. Never eat a mushroom you've found without confirmation that it is edible by an expert.

Comments

Milky Conecap - Conocybe apala

Often, I will find a mushroom and never be able to work out what it is. I will spend days searching the internet and looking in books, but never able to solve the mystery. It can be really frustrating. This happened to me at the beginning of May, when I was walking home from an appointment and saw a white mushroom poking out of the grass nearby. It was the first time I'd seen a mushroom in over a month, so I was pretty excited about it. I did what I usually do: took pictures, examined it, made notes. Then I went home to do some research, and couldn't find anything. So I forgot about it. Yesterday, whilst I was doing research for another mushroom, I accidentally clicked on a wrong link and ended up on a page describing the Milky Conecap , or Conocybe apala. I had an "aha!" moment, as I recognised instantly that it was the same mushroom I had spent so long trying to find a name for. Let me tell you, there's nothing more satisfying than putting the final pieces

Dung Roundhead - Stropharia semiglobata

The start of mushroom season is finally upon us, and I couldn't be more excited. Although the bouts of rain weren't ideal for our wedding last week, they did mean lots of exciting finds during our honeymoon, walking through damp North Wales. I will no doubt make many posts about the intriguing finds we stumbled across during our time away, but I wanted to start at our first fungal encounter, the Dung Roundhead , or Stropharia semiglobata. Scattered across the huge pastures we were walking through were hundreds of them. And though the name suggests they grow exclusively on dung, the majority of them were in fact beside dung. The gills are adnate and ranged in colour depending on the age of the mushroom. Younger ones had a more purplish tinge to them, while the more mature species had black gills. The spore print is a dark purplish-brown colour. Characteristics Habitat: On or beside dung, usually in pasture. Cap: 1-3cm across, hemispherical. Cream to ye

Pale Brittlestem - Psathyrella candolleana

Going for a walk on a weekday is really rather peaceful, as everyone is at work. It can feel like you have a whole section of the world to yourself, like your own little secret. That's how I felt today walking down the Rhymney Trail . There were loads of birds and dragonflies about, but other than that, I was pretty much by myself. It wasn't until I was on my way back that I found any mushrooms. I came slightly off the path to look at a pile of fallen trees and, just as I was about to give up, I spotted a cluster of mushrooms, nearing the end of their life. It's been really dry the last couple of days, so it's likely they ran out of moisture. When I looked to the floor next to me, I saw some more poking out of the ground. They looked similar to a cluster I'd found in March, which I'd only recently identified. I went home to make a spore print and look at my old pictures, and concluded that these elderly fungi were Pale Brittlestems , or Psa

The Shroom Room

Search This Blog