Ascocoryne sarcoides - Purple Jellydisc

Taxonomy

Phylum: Ascomycota

Class: Leotiomycetes

Order: Leotiales

Family: Helotiaceae (insertae sedis)

Most commonly found on the trunks and branches of dead Beech trees, this colourful ascomycetous wood-rotting fungus can form large and conspicuous clusters.

Because of its jelly-like nature, Ascocryne sarcoides is often confused with some of the heterobasidiomycete species (the true 'jelly fungi') in the genus Tremella. For example Tremella foliacea is sometimes brain-like in structure, rather than leaf-like as its name suggests; it is usually reddish brown.

Identification Guide

	Fruitbody Various shades of pinkish purple; spherical at first, either sessile or with a very short stem, later becoming centrally depressed and then irregularly cushion shaped; forming brain-like compound groups; gelatinous; individual fruitbodies 0.5 to 1.5cm across; clusters often 5 to 10cm across.
Spores	White.
Odour/taste	Not distinctive.
Habitat	On rotting trunks and stumps of broadleaf trees, particularly Beech.
Season	Fruiting in late summer, autumn and early winter.
Occurrence	Widespread and very common.
Similar species	Ascocoryne cylichnium is similar but its fruitbodies remain cup shaped rather than merging into a brain-like form; it can be identified with certainly only by microscopic study of the spores, which are much larger than those of Ascocoryne sarcoides.