50 More Urban Species: #48 Conifer Witch's Butter
Conifer witch's butter, Dacrymyces chryospermus, pushes fruiting bodies out of the thick paint on a pine bench.
This jelly fungus is one of the delights of the mushroom fan in winter. When the ice thaws and a chilly rain falls on everything, the translucent orange lobes of witch's butter appear. On hardwood trees, the witch's butter is Tremella, a parasitic fungus eating the wood-digesting fungus within. On conifers like pine and hemlock, Dacrymyces grows instead. (D. palmatus is the most common binomial listed in online sources, but D. chrysospermus seems to be the more up-to-date scientific name.) Besides habitat, Tremella and Dacrymyces can be distinguished by the microscopic features of their spore-producing cells. Apparently the base of Dacrymyces fruiting bodies can be whitish, but I honestly have not observed this myself. Tremella is known to be edible, but on the question of Dacrymyces, mycologist Gary Lincoff says it "helps if you're a witch."