Auricularia auricula-judae
The jelly ear or wood ear is a European white-rot fungus with rubbery, ear-shaped fruit bodies, found mostly on dead and dying elder. It fruits all year but mainly in autumn and mild winter spells, and dried fruit bodies revive when wetted. Cultivators can grow it on hardwood logs or supplemented sawdust, fruiting it cool and very humid.
Where it grows wild
Saprotrophic on dead and decaying elder (Sambucus nigra) wood and on dying branches, and a weak parasite on living elder trunks. It also grows on sycamore, beech, ash and spindle, and rarely on conifers. Fruit bodies grow singly or in clusters on older branches in woodland and hedgerows, and cause a white rot.
A lowland woodland and hedgerow fungus in the records here. The measured sites are at 1–330 m in England and the Netherlands.
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The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY 2.5 licence, unmodified.