Pseudohydnum gelatinosum
Description
Pseudohydnum gelatinosum is an edible mushroom widely distributed in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, North America, Central America, and South America. The fungus grows in woodlands on dead trunks, logs, and stumps
This fungus often grows in dark, damp places in association with Douglas Fir. It varies in shape from tongue-like to spoon-like to fan-like.
Pseudohydnum gelatinosum is good with honey and cream. It can also be marinated for use in salads.
Common names: Toothed Jelly Fungus, False Hedgehog Mushroom, Cat's Tongue, White Jelly Mushroom.
Mushroom Identification
Ecology
Saprobic on the wood or woody debris of conifers; sometimes growing from standing trees (and reported by some as parasitic); growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; in eastern North America frequently growing in overlapping clusters; late summer and fall, or fall and winter in warmer climates; widely distributed in North America, but rare or absent in many areas.
Cap
1-7 cm across; tongue-shaped or kidney-shaped; broadly convex or flat; gelatinous but not slimy to the touch; smooth or finely fuzzy; translucent white to grayish, brown, or fairly dark brown; the margin tucked under when young.
Undersurface
Spines to 3 mm long; running down the stem; translucent white or pale grayish; sometimes faintly bluish.
Stem
To 6 cm long; either lateral and stubby (when specimens are growing from the sides of logs) or well developed and vertical (when specimens are growing from the tops of logs or terrestrial woody debris); gelatinous; smooth; colored like the cap or paler.
Edibility
Edible can be eaten raw but without a distinctive flavor.
Flesh: Translucent; gelatinous.
Spore Print: White.
Pseudohydnum gelatinosum Bioactive Compounds
In a survey of 403 species of fungi tested for lectins with human and rabbit red blood cells, only this species had anti-A serologic specificity (Pemberton, 1994).
Medicinal Properties
Polysaccharides extracted from the mycelial culture of P. gelatinosum and administered intraperitoneally into white mice at a dosage of 300 mg/kg inhibited the growth of Sarcoma 180 and Ehrlich solid cancers by 90% (Ohtsuka et al., 1973).
History
When Italian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli described this jelly-like fungus in 1772 he gave it the binomial scientific name Hydnum gelatinosum. It was Finnish mycologist Petter Adolf Karsten (1834 - 1917) who, in 1868, transferred this species to the genus Pseudohydnum, whereupon it acquired its currently-accepted scientific name Pseudohydnum gelatinosum.
Synonyms of Pseudohydnum gelatinosum include Hydnum gelatinosum Scop., Steccherinum gelatinosum (Scop.) Gray, Hydnogloea gelatinosa (Scop.) Curr. ex Berk., and Tremellodon gelatinosum (Scop.) Pers.
Pseudohydnum, the generic name, comes from Pseudo- meaning similar too or easily confused with, and -hydnum, which is an ancient term for a mushroom; however, in this case Pseudohydnum means 'similar to fungi of the genus Hydnum'.
Hydnum repandum is commonly referred to as the Wood Hedgehog fungus, and as with other mushrooms in that genus its fertile lower surface is covered in tooth-like spines very similar in form to those of the Toothed Jelly Fungus Pseudohydnum gelatinosum. , but this does not mean that they are closely related; indeed, toothed fungi also occur in many other fungus families.
The specific epithet gelatinosum refers to the gelatinous texture of these jelly-like fungi.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: xulescu_g (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo 2 - Author: B59210 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo 3 - Author: Björn S... (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Photo 4 - Author: B59210 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
