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Witch's Butter - Tremella mesenterica
Gelatinous yellow-orange fruiting bodies that resemble apricot jam smeared all over a branch. The fruiting bodies are composed of brain-like sections/lobes and have no stems. They feel like gummy bears and are surprisingly tough.
This fungus grows on the dead wood of many types of trees, but it is particularly common of birch. However, it's not the wood that Tremella mesenterica feeds upon, but rather the crust fungi, which have been feeding on the wood. Therefore, this fungus is more parasitic than it is saprobic.
"Tremella mesenterica" is a common jelly fungus in the Tremellaceae family of the Agaricomycotina. It is most frequently found on dead but attached and on recently fallen branches, especially of angiosperms, as a parasite of wood decay fungi in the genus "Peniophora".
