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Jelly Fungus (1 Viewer)

Lorne

Well-known member
A couple of years ago when I started to photograph fungi I thought the simple thing would be to just post all the pics on this forum! but the truth is that we should at the very least try to ID them ourselves. Since then I have got a few books inc. Phillips and we have worked hard to ID nearly everything we find. Today we were walking through dogsh*t ally at Lodmoor looking for the Grey Fal, when Sheila realized that most of the stuff on the ground was green! We have tried to ID it but no luck so does anyone have any idea? it appears to be a jelly type?
Regards Lorne
 

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It's not a fungus. There was an article some while ago in Field Mycology as this stuff appeared all over the place one year, and lots of people did not know what to make of it. I have seen it a few times. Anyway, I think it is an algae. I cannot recall what species they suggested. It seems to appear in damp areas. Maybe a Google of algae and a few other words will get you a hit!
 
Hi Leif, thanks for that, I did send the photo to a friend who is suggesting Bladderwort or Liverwort as a possibility so I will need to start looking outside of the fungi box then.
Lorne
 
Hi Leif, thanks for that, I did send the photo to a friend who is suggesting Bladderwort or Liverwort as a possibility so I will need to start looking outside of the fungi box then.
Lorne

I did a Google and turned up Nostoc, which is more commonly seen as one of the partners in some 'species' of Lichen. (I use the term 'species' loosely here given that it is a pairing of a fungus and an algae.) Apparently Nostoc is a cyanobacteria. If you do like me an Google Nostoc, you will learn that some species are cultivated and eaten in parts of Asia, and that it has no nutritional value, and might even be poisonous.
 
I have done the Google on Nostoc, and it sounds pretty wierd, the descriptions mostly seem like strings of cells. This from Wikepedia;
"When on the ground, a Nostoc colony is ordinarily not seen; but after rain it swells up into a conspicuous jellylike mass, which was once thought to have fallen from the sky, whence the popular names, fallen star and star jelly.
It is also called witches' butter (not to be confused with the fungus Tremella
mesenterica)
There is also a very interesting description here;
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-nos1.htm
Also when the world runs out of petrol this algae may be our savior;
"Nostoc Bacteria May Produce Hydrogen for Vehicles"!!
Lorne
 
I can't add any information but I encountered it last week in Dumfries and Galloway. It was on a wet and shady path and I assumed it must be some sort of algae. It completely covered the path where it occurred making walking quite hazardous. You have turned up some interesting information on it in this thread.

Ron
 
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