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Wood Ear
The common brown wood ear on dead hardwoods across North America. It has a thin, rubbery-gelatinous, ear-shaped fruitbody with a finely hairy upper surface and a smooth spore-bearing underside. It was described in 2015 from a fallen oak in Connecticut; before that it was filed as the "deciduous unit" of A. americana, or under the European name A. auricula-judae. A. americana is the conifer-dwelling counterpart.
Edible, like other wood ears; eat cooked, not raw. It has no dangerous look-alikes. Other jelly fungi on hardwood, such as Exidia recisa and Phaeotremella frondosa, are softer, lack the fine hairs and do not form separate ear-shaped lobes; they are not considered dangerous but are not the same food.
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Mycology is an evolving science: names, classifications and safety information change as research advances. Entries are compiled from cited sources and reviewed, but may be incomplete or out of date — check the sources, and never rely on this library alone to identify or eat a mushroom.
