Photo: J. Carmichael, Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)

Witch's Butter

Tremella mesenterica

Also known as Witch's Butter, Yellow Brain, Golden Jelly Fungus, Yellow Trembler, Brain Fungus

At a glance

Family

Tremellaceae (jelly fungi)

Type

Fungus (gelatinous jelly fungus)

Parts used

Fruiting body (the golden, lobed jelly mass)

Size

Lobed clusters roughly 1 to 3 inches across, wobbling and brain-like

Bloom

Not applicable, fruits after rain from late autumn through winter and into spring

Habitat

Dead and dying hardwood branches, especially oak, where it feeds on a wood-rotting fungus hidden in the bark

Acquisition

Forage

Traditional remedies in HerbSense

Key benefits

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Traditionally eaten as food

Rich in soothing polysaccharides

Old folk wound and skin use

A beloved foraging curiosity

Traditional uses

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Witch's butter earned its name from old European and Appalachian folklore, which held that if the golden jelly appeared on your gate, fence, or door, a witch had laid a curse on your house, and country folk would prick it with pins or burn it to break the spell. In parts of China, golden jelly fungi have long been gathered alongside their whiter cousin and simmered into gentle, nourishing soups, valued more for their soft, translucent texture than for flavor, which is famously mild to nearly tasteless. Foragers have also passed down a simpler, quieter tradition of just admiring it: a startling bead of gold on a gray winter branch, appearing almost overnight after rain and vanishing again as the wood dries. It was sometimes rubbed fresh onto small cuts and chapped skin in old country practice, valued for its cool, slippery, cushioning feel rather than any dramatic cure.

How to grow & use it

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Pairs well with

✦Goji Berry
✦Red Date (Jujube)
✦Fresh Ginger

Substitutes

✦Tremella fuciformis (Snow Fungus)
✦Wood Ear (Auricularia)

Choose it when

“When a bead of gold trembles on a rain-soaked branch, and the woods ask you to slow down and look closer.”

Did you know?

In old English and Appalachian folk belief, witch's butter appearing on a gate or doorpost was taken as proof a witch had cursed the household, and the traditional remedy was to pierce the jelly with a pin or burn it to break the hex.

Safety

Witch's butter is generally regarded as edible and non-toxic, though correct identification is needed to distinguish it from other gelatinous wood fungi.