Identification: This fungus inhabits dead pine trees whose
bark has fallen away. It is shiny, bright yellow-orange, and lobed and convoluted, looking a bit like the
surface of the brain. It dries to a reddish-orange or dark red-brown color, with a tough outer membrane. Fruiting bodies
are ⅜-2 ⨉ ⅞″ (1-6 ⨉ 2.5 cm). Although
Tremella aurantia and
Tremella mesenterica appear similar, but they are more
yellow in color, and they fruit on hardwood trees which still have their bark,
rather than on dead conifers.
Roughly 75 people in North America are poisoned each year by mushrooms, often from eating a poisonous species that resembles an edible species. Though deaths are rare, there is no cure short of a liver transplant for severe poisoning. Don't eat any mushroom unless you are absolutely certain of its identity! Please don't trust the identifications on this site. We aren't mushroom experts and we haven't focused on safely identifying edible species.