Calocera cornea
Description
Calocera cornea is a widespread wood-inhabiting jelly-fungus. Its growth in large troops on rotting logs and small size set it apart from the other club-fungi. Microscopically, its spores are divided by a cross wall and are produced on basidia that are shaped like tuning forks or wishbones.
This yellow to orange-yellow mushroom has a gelatinous and rubbery texture and mostly simple upright spikes. Sometimes spikes are forked.
Common names: Small Staghorn, Ragveida Zaraine (Latvia).
Mushroom Identification
Ecology
Saprobic; growing scattered to gregariously on the barkless wood of hardwoods (especially oaks); summer and fall; widely distributed in North America.
Fruiting Body
Cylindric, with rounded to sharpened tips; occasionally shallowly forked near the tip; to about 2 cm high and 3 mm thick; smooth and slick; firm but gelatinous; orangish-yellow.
Spore Print
White to yellowish.
Microscopic Features
Spores 7-11 x 3-4.5 µ; curved-cylindric; smooth; aseptate or frequently faintly 1-septate by maturity. Basidia Y-shaped; up to 25 x 3 µ.
Look-Alikes
-
Much larger and has branches emanating from a short trunk.
Calocera pallidospathula
Initially translucent white, and only its tips become yellowish with age.
Calocera furcata
Grows on conifer wood; its spores are 3-septate.
Ramaria species of coral fungi
But the greasy surface and rubbery texture are obvious distinguishing features.
History
In 1783 German mycologist August Johann Georg Karl Batsch (1761 - 1802) described this little wood-rotting fungus and gave it the binomial scientific name Clavaria cornea. Nearly half a century later, in 1827, the great Swedish mycologist Elias Magnus Fries, who had established the genus Calocera in 1821, renamed this species as Calocera cornea, which has remained its accepted scientific name up to the present time.
Synonyms of Calocera cornea include Clavaria cornea Batsch, Clavaria striata Hoffm., Tremella palmata Schumach., Corynoides cornea (Batsch) Gray, Calocera palmata (Schumach.) Fr., and Calocera striata (Hoffm.) Fr.
Calo- as a prefix means beautiful, while the extension -cera comes from ancient Greek and means 'like wax', so that the genus name Calocera translates to 'beautiful and waxy'. The specific epithet cornea is derived from Latin, and it means 'horn'.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: Peter Gabler (Public Domain)
Photo 2 - Author: bjoerns (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Photo 3 - Author: Holger Krisp (CC BY 3.0)
Photo 4 - Author: Thomas Laxton (CC BY-SA 4.0)