Snow Fungus

It's been a wet couple of weeks in the BackWoods Forest Preserve. The frogs are singing, the mosquitoes are buzzing and the fungus is appearing everywhere!

This white, translucent and jelly like fungus is the fruiting body of Snow Fungus (Tremella fuciformis). This species is only found in wet conditions and can be found throughout the tropics and subtropics of the world. In Asia, this almost tasteless fungus is used in sweet dishes and desserts for its gelatinous quality.

If you look closely, you'll notice that a snail has moved into this fungus and now has a home just as
slimy as itself.

Interestingly, when we spotted this fungus in the BackWoods, neither Jill nor myself were entirely sure what kind of fungus it might be. As neither of us are mycologists, nor have the research sources onhand for random fungus identification, so we decided to crowd source an answer on Project Noah. Within 45 minutes, another Project Noah user suggested an identification and they were spot on. Living in the future is pretty cool. You can learn more about Project Noah and citizen science in this post from our blog.

What's in a Name?

The genus Tremella contains over 100 species of parasitic fungi that host upon other fungus. The genus was named by Carl Linneaus and comes from the Latin word tremere meaning "to tremble".

The specific epithet, fuciformis come from the Latin words fuci meaning "seaweed" and forma meaning "shape" or "form", a reference to the somewhat gooey and verymuch seaweed like shape of this fungus.