Fan-shaped Jelly Fungus

not listed

not listed

not listed

Fan-shaped Jelly Fungus is a widespread but not common edible fungus. It occurs in southern Africa, southern and eastern Asia, Australia, and North and South America. In the United States it occurs east of the Great Plains and in the Pacific Northwest. It grows on dead, well-rotted wood from which the bark has been removed (decorticated). It appears in groups or clusters, often in dense rows in a crack in the wood. It obtains its nutrients from decaying plant matter (saprobic).

The fruiting body is fan-shaped or spatula-shaped, ⅜″ to 1″ (10 to 25 mm) tall, 3⁄16″ to ⅜″ (5 to 10 mm) wide. It has a rubbery to gelatinous texture and it can be yellowish-orange to orange or reddish-orange to orange. There is a cylindrical, stalk-like base but the stalk cannot be differentiated from the rest of the structure.

The flesh is edible but too small, insubstantial, and bland to bother with.

The spore print is yellow.

Dead, debarked wood

July through October

Sources

4, 7, 26, 29, 30, 77.

Widespread but not common

This fungus was originally described as Merulius spathularia in 1822. It was moved to the newly created genus Dacryopinax in 1948 based on the spatula-like shape of the fruiting body. A later taxonomic analysis of the family Dacrymycetaceae (McNabb, RF, 1965) showed that it is not closely related to the type species of that genus. A recent study (Alvarenga GL and Gibertoni TB, 2021) proposed moving three species, including Dacryopinax spathularia, to the genus Dacrymyces based on DNA analyses.

growing on old cut wood originating from the property

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Location: Rolling Prairie, Indiana 46371

growing on old cut wood originating from the property