Auricularia mesenterica: The Ultimate Mushroom Guide

About The Auricularia mesenterica Mushroom

Auricularia mesenterica is a species of fungus in the family Auriculariaceae. Fruit bodies grow in undulating densely-packed shelves that adopt a partially resupinate form. A. mesenterica feeds saprotrophically on several woody substrates in deciduous forests.

The species forms scaffold-like fruiting bodies that initially appear pale, rubbery, and button-like. The fruiting bodies often fuse into composite structures, sometimes extending over a meter along fallen tree trunks and branches. The upper surface is gray to brown, felt to hispid with concentric zones, while the lower surface is thick gelatinous, irregularly radially folded, wavy and putty, and reddish-brown.

This species is considered a cosmopolitan species and grows on many different species of angiosperm wood, such as poplar, elm, and ash, typically from summer to fall. It is a common species in Europe, but rare in the Americas and China.

Before the fruit body fully matures and hardens, young specimens are edible, but in some local populations, these fungi tend to bioaccumulate high levels of heavy metals from their environment. A. mesenterica has shown to have high levels of phenols, flavonoids, and antioxidant activity, having potential as antitumor agent.

Other names: Tripe Fungus.

Auricularia mesenterica Identification

1. Fruit Bodies

   Bracket-like but attached only loosely to the host timber, the fruitbodies start as pale rubbery buttons but expand to typically 3 to 7 cm across, often merging into compound structures sometimes running along fallen trunks and branches for more than a meter.

2. Surface

   The upper (infertile) surface of the lobed fruit body is downy or hairy and zoned in various concentric bands of purple, brown, ochre, grey, and white. The fertile underside is initially smooth with a whitish bloom, but it becomes wrinkled and reddish-brown to ochre with age.

3. Flesh

   Inside the fruitbody the flesh is gelatinous but rubbery - so tough that it is usually much easier to tear the whole of a fruitbody from its substrate than to remove just a small piece.

4. Spores

   Sausage shaped (allantoid), 15-17 x 6-7µm.

5. Spore Print

   White.

6. Habitat & Ecological Role

   Saprobic, on deciduous hardwoods particularly dead and decaying elms and Beech; very occasionally on living trees.

7. Season

   Late summer and autumn.

Auricularia mesenterica Taxonomy & Etymology

Auricularia mesenterica was described by James Dickson as Helvella mesenterica in 1785, and transferred to the genus Auricularia by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon in 1822, Further genetic analysis has revealed an Auricularia mesenterica species complex, with A. mesenterica as the basal species. The specific epithet is a Latin adjective formed from the Ancient Greek word μεσεντεριον (mesenterion), "middle intestine", from μεσο- (meso-, "middle, center") and εντερον (enteron, "intestine"), referring to its shape.