Guepiniopsis alpina

What You Should Know

Guepiniopsis alpine (syn. Heterotextus alpinus) consists of cone-shaped yellow to yellow-orange gelatinous, smooth and slightly sticky fruiting bodies. They are saprotrophic and are found on decaying conifer wood that is barkless particularly following a good rain in late summer and autumn. Edibility is unknown. Another common Guepiniopsis is G. buccina, which has a ribbed stem.

This jelly fungus is in the Dacrymycetaceae family of Dacrymycetales order. Fungi in this order have ‘tuning fork’ basidia.

The fungus was first described in 1901 by Samuel Mills Tracy and Franklin Sumner Earle under the name Guepinia alpina in 1901. It was later transferred to Heterotextus in 1932, and then to Guepiniopsis in 1938.

Other names: Jelly Cup, Alpine Jelly Cone, Poor Man's Gumdrop.

Guepiniopsis alpina Mushroom Identification

1. Ecology

   Saprobic on the deadwood of conifers; growing gregariously to densely gregariously from cracks in the wood; spring through late summer (but see the discussion above); distributed in western North America from the Rocky Mountains westward; also known from South America and Europe.

2. Fruiting Body

   More or less disc-shaped, or shaped like a top, with a clearly defined upper surface; 4–20 mm across; without a clearly defined stem but sometimes developing a pseudostem.

3. Upper Surface

   Bright to pale yellowish-orange or orangish-yellow or simply orange or yellow; bald; flat or with a few wrinkles; the margin sometimes appearing finely scalloped.

4. Undersurface

   Colored like the upper surface, or slightly darker; rugged but bald; not grooved.

5. Pseudostem

   When present, shaped like an inverted cone; colored and textured like the undersurface.

6. Flesh

   Orangish to yellowish; gelatinous and softly rubbery.

7. Microscopic Features

   Spores 11–17 x 4–5 µm; cylindric to allantoid; smooth; long appearing aseptate but eventually developing 2–3 septa; hyaline in KOH. Conidia often present; 4–6 x 2–3 µm; ellipsoid to lacrymoid or very irregular; smooth; hyaline in KOH. Basidia Y-shaped; 40–50 x 2–3 µm; smooth; yellow in KOH. Probasidia similar to basidia but smaller, or with shorter "tongs," or unbranched and fusiform to cylindric. Contextual hyphae 2–3 µm wide; smooth; hyaline or, en masse, golden in KOH; with large, looping clamp connections.

   Cortical hairs arranged in a palisade; 25–50 x 5–22 µm; fusiform to lageniform or ob-pyriform; with very thick, gelatinous walls that sometimes appear zonate; hyaline in KOH; smooth or a little granular.

Sources:

Photo 1 - Author: Walter Siegmund (talk) (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic)

Photo 2 - Author: Walter Siegmund (talk) (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic)

Photo 3 - Author: Bernard Spragg. NZ from Christchurch, New Zealand (Public Domain)

Photo 4 - Author: Walter Siegmund (talk) (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic)

Photo 5 - Author: Walter Siegmund (talk) (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic)