Outdoor Elements
Wiggly Witch's Jelly
Clip | 2m 42sVideo has Closed Captions
Evie takes a closer look at some unusual fungus.
Some of nature's most fascinating discoveries are easy to miss! Hidden on fallen trees and branches throughout the forest, White Jelly Fungus—also known as White Witches Jelly—often goes unnoticed. In this episode of Outdoor Elements, Evie takes a closer look at this unusual fungus to explain how it got its mysterious name, explore its unique lifecycle, and reveal the impo...
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Outdoor Elements is a local public television program presented by PBS Michiana
Outdoor Elements
Wiggly Witch's Jelly
Clip | 2m 42sVideo has Closed Captions
Some of nature's most fascinating discoveries are easy to miss! Hidden on fallen trees and branches throughout the forest, White Jelly Fungus—also known as White Witches Jelly—often goes unnoticed. In this episode of Outdoor Elements, Evie takes a closer look at this unusual fungus to explain how it got its mysterious name, explore its unique lifecycle, and reveal the impo...
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Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipIt's a damp June day in a deciduous woods that I'm hiking along, and I noticed a really fun fungi.
It is known as white jelly fungus.
Let's take a look.
So here it is.
Growing along this log and white jelly fungus is often found on logs that have already lost the bark off of them.
It gets its nutrients by feeding on decaying wood.
So this is perfect habitat.
There's lots of fallen limbs here.
All around where I'm sitting.
Most of the time we walk right by jelly fungus and don't even know that it's here because in dry conditions, it's just sort of a crusty, almost like a film on top of the logs and the mycelia, which are the little structures working around to decay inside the log, are doing their thing without us being able to see them.
But when we have wet, especially wet, warm ish temperatures, these fruiting bodies explode up.
And in this species they are white, hence the name white jelly fungus.
Jelly comes from the fact that it's super squishy wiggly.
You can kind of like, feel that it's, a lot like, really firm jelly.
There are other species of jelly fungi, witch’s is butter, which is yellowish.
There are some translucent species, but this one is almost always white, except for sometimes when it starts growing on top of itself, it gets a little bit of a tan or a little bit of a yellowish color.
It does reproduce by spores one of the ways.
And so in these damp conditions, it will send forth spores.
And then that is the way that it spreads around in the habitat.
One other really funny name for this species is, witch’s boogers.
I think it fits.
Looks like it to me.
Remember, you can find your own outer aliments when you visit area parks and natural areas.
We'll see you soon.
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