Witches butter

Witches butter on a log in Redwood Regional Park looking a lot like melted macaroni & cheese.

Witches butter is odd. It is a blobular yellow fungus found on every continent except Antarctica. Thin and unnoticed during dry times, with the application of water it achieves the look of a slimy, golden brain. It is near impossible to draw something so gelatinous.

The Encyclopedia of Fairies claims that this fungus is the chief food of the fay, while the Encyclopedia of Superstitions and Folklore insists it is a substance witches use to make themselves invisible. They form it from “the aurora-colored matter exuded from the bodies of stolen children,” whatever that is. Swedish folklore, on the other hand, wants us to believe that it is the poisonous vomit of cats who belong to witches. These cats creep into your home at night to steal your food. They eat too much and vomit on your gate on the way out, thereby cursing you. Nonsensical that, even for folklore.

Originally described by Anders Retzius in 1769, it was officially christened Tremella mesenterica in the second volume of Systema Mycologium published in 1822 by another Swede, Elias Magnus Fries. I do know that this is a common Swedish name likely pronounced freez, or freyeSH, but this stupid-American-brain wants to make super-sized french-cut potato jokes anyway. For you, I will refrain.

Elias Magnus Fries (http://media-1.web.britannica.com/eb-media/90/11690-004-9C738F4A.jpg)

Fries is known as the founding father of mushroom taxonomy. He worked at Lund University as the Professor of Applied Economics - which makes no sense really. Then again, Carl Linneus was Professor of Botany at that time, and the only open job was probably economics. Fries later became the Director of the Uppsala Botanic Garden, so I guess some business sense rubbed off on him. One article I found in the Journal of Wild Mushrooming described Fries as a child prodigy who spoke Latin before he learned Swedish. The portrait that accompanies the article shows a clean-shaven man with unfortunate bushy white sideburns. His works are illustrated by Elias Petersson and Hampus von Post who follow Fries’ refusal to use a microscope.

By Elias Petersson (http://www.janahman.se/bilder5/Elias_Pettersson_sopp.jpg)

I first remember seeing witches butter on a field trip that I helped organize to visit the home of a friend of a friend of a friend who owns a mountain top. Barbara (I think that was her name) clomped off across her yard as soon as we piled out of the car and insisted we were there to see the waterfall. There was no path I could see. Everything was lovely and overgrown, though we were repeatedly admonished not to step on anything "important". I was left to assume that meant anything green. The waterfall was nice, 3-6 inches wide, wet, hard to reach, impossible to view in groups larger than 2. The real prize though was the giant smear of witches butter along a fallen log on the way to the falls. My memory makes it larger than the commonly noted 3 inches wide, 1-2 inch high measurements in the field guides. On a damp day in a dark oak forest it glowed as if lit from within.

The last few years in Northern California have been dry and droughtful, devoid of Tremella for 
the most part. It has been fun to see it appear again in these January rains, glowing wetly on fallen logs. Experts disagree as to whether it is edible or not. Most say no, others say yes -though it has no taste. One website claims it is good to add to soups for texture. No thanks. I’d rather picture cartoon witches squeezing it onto toast from pastry bags and leaving dribbles behind in the woods for me to enjoy.