Tremella Mesenterica
Tremella lutescens Pers. (1798)
Tremella quercina Pollini (1816)
Tremella mesenterica | |
|---|---|
 | Smooth hymenium |
 | No distinct cap |
 | Hymenium attachment is not applicable |
| Lacks a stipe |
 | Spore print is white to yellow |
 | Ecology is parasitic |
 | Edibility is edible |
Tremella mesenterica (common names include yellow brain, golden jelly fungus, yellow trembler, and witches' butter) is a common jelly fungus in the family Tremellaceae of the Agaricomycotina. The gelatinous, orange-yellow fruit body of the fungus, which can grow up to 7.5 cm (3 in) diameter, has a convoluted or lobed surface that is greasy or slimy when damp.
It is most frequently found on both dead but attached and recently fallen branches, especially of angiosperms, as a parasite of wood decay fungi in the genus Peniophora. It also grows in crevices in bark, appearing during rainy weather. Within a few days after rain it dries into a thin film or shriveled mass capable of reviving after subsequent rain. This fungus occurs widely in deciduous and mixed forests and is widely distributed in temperate and tropical regions, including those of Africa, Australia, Eurasia, and the Americas. Although considered bland and flavorless, the fungus is edible. It produces carbohydrates that have attracted research interest because of their various biological activities.
Taxonomy
The species was originally described in 1769 from Sweden by Anders Jahan Retzius. It was later (1822) sanctioned by Elias Magnus Fries in the second volume of his Systema Mycologicum. It is the type species of the genus Tremella. Its distinctive appearance has led the species to accumulate a variety of common names, including "yellow trembler", "yellow brain", "golden jelly fungus", and "witches' butter". This latter name is also applied to both Exidia glandulosa and Fuligo septica, and stems from Swedish and Scandinavian folklore surrounding witchcraft, in which a bile spewed up by thieving "carriers" or troll cats is referred to as, "butter of the witches."
—They confessed also, that the devil gives them a beast, about the shape and bigness of a cat, which they call a carrier ; and he gives them a bird, too, as big as a raven, but white : And these creatures they can send any where and wherever they come, they take away all sorts of victuals they can get, as butter, cheese, milk, bacon, and all sorts of seeds, whatever they can find, and carry it to the witches. What the bird brings, they may keep for themselves : but what the carrier brings, they must reserve for the devil, and that is brought to Blockula, where he gives them of it as much as he thinks fit. —They added, that the carriers filled themselves so full oftentimes, that they are forced to spew by the way, which spewing is found in several gardens, where colworts grow, and not far from the houses of the witches. It is of a yellow colour like gold, and is called the butter of the witches.
| Phylogeny and relationships of T. mesenterica and related species based on rDNA sequences. |
The specific epithet is a Latin adjective formed from the Ancient Greek word μεσεντέριον (mesentérion), "middle intestine", from μεσο- (meso-, "middle, center") and ἔντερον (énteron, "intestine"), referring to its shape.
The species formerly recognized as Tremella lutescens is now seen as a form of T. mesenterica with washed-out colors and considered a synonym.
Based on molecular analysis of the sequences of the D1/D2 regions of the large subunit ribosomal RNA gene and the internal transcribed spacer regions of rRNA, T. mesenterica is most closely related to T. coalescens, T. tropica, and T. brasiliensis. This analysis included 20 of the estimated 120 Tremella species.
Description
The fruit body has an irregular shape, and usually breaks through the bark of dead branches. It is up to 7.5 cm (3 in) broad and 2.5 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in) high, rounded to variously lobed or brain-like in appearance. The fruit body is gelatin-like but tough when wet, and hard when dry. The surface is usually smooth, the lobes translucent, deep yellow or bright yellow-orange, fading to pale yellow, rarely unpigmented and white or colorless. The fruit bodies dry to a dark reddish or orange. The spores, viewed in mass, are whitish or pale yellow.
Life cycle
Tremella mesenterica has a yeastlike phase in its life cycle that arises as a result of budding of basidiospores. The alternation between asexual and sexual propagation is achieved by mating of yeast-form haploid cells of two compatible mating types. Each mating type secretes a mating pheromone that elicits sexual differentiation of the target cell having the opposite mating type to the pheromone-producing cell. The sexual differentiation is characterized by the arrest of the growth in the G1 phase of the cell division cycle and subsequent formation of an elongated mating tube. Formation of the mating tube, initiated by the pheromones A-10 and a-13, is similar to the process of bud emergence during bipolar budding in yeasts. Tremerogen A-10 has been purified and its chemical structure found to be S-polyisoprenyl peptide. Fruit bodies arise from a primordium located beneath the wood bark, and sometimes more than one fruit body can originate separately from the same primordia.
Microscopic characteristics
The basidia (spore-bearing cells) are ellipsoid to roughly spherical in shape, not or rarely stalked, and typically 15–21 μm wide. They contain two to four septa that divide it into compartments; the septa are most frequently diagonal or vertical. Asexual reproduction in T. mesenterica is carried out through the formation of spores called conidia, which arise from conidiophores—specialized hyphal cells that are morphologically distinct from the somatic hyphae. The conidiophores are densely branched and normally abundant in the hymenium; young specimens may be entirely conidial. The conidia are roughly spherical, ovoid, or ellipsoid, and about 2–3 by 2–2.5 μm. They may be so numerous that young fruit bodies may be covered in a bright yellow, conidial slime. The spores are broadly ellipsoid to oblong, on average 10–16 by 6–9.5 μm; they germinate by germ tube or by yeast-like conidia of identical form to the conidia produced on the conidiophores.
