The jelly ear fungus at Ickworth Park, UK

During the Ancient Tree Forum visit to Ickworth Park a few weeks ago, I spotted many examples of Auricularia auricula-judae (jelly ear fungus). This fungus is pretty cool, albeit somewhat common on more heavily-decayed deadwood (both standing and fallen). Below are some of the better examples.

A large stem of a field maple (Acer campestre). Looking more closely, we can spot…

…the jelly ear fungus! And lots of lichen.

In fact, there’s a lot of the sporophores of the jelly ear fungus on this field maple. Interestingly, the sporophores are limited to areas of old branch attachments / bud clusters. Perhaps the different wood fibre arrangement around the area of a branch attachment reduces the rate of delignification, thus providing the mycelium with a habitat for a longer period of time? Only speculation.

A few more peek their head out from the wood substrate.

Probably my favourite image!

Another really good shot.

This time, we can spot the fungus upon a branch within the crown of a mature beech (Fagus sylvatica).

And now on an elder (Sambucus nigra).

Panning-out from the above shot gives us a better idea of context.

This last image is not from the park, but instead from a long-dead hedgerow elm that fell in some high winds very recently.