Fruit-body: cup or ear-shaped, red-brown or deep wine-colour, gelatinous with its upper surface, velvety and clothed in greyish or olivaceous hairs.
Spore-bearing layer: reddish or purplish brown, smooth or veined and translucent.
Spore-print: white.
Spores: very long, hyaline under the microscope, oblong, curved and narrowed towards their base, 16-18 × 6-8 µm in size.
Cystidia: absent.
Habitat & Distribution: On dead branches of all kinds and particularly common throughout the year on elder.
General Information: Easily recognised by the wine-coloured, cup-shaped or ear-shaped fruit-body; it is often called Auricularia judae in many books. Its Latin name is reflected in the common name:—auricula ear and judae, of a jew. This fungus is supposed to be a reappearance, as a warning to us all, of Judas, who on betrayal of Christ hung himself from an elder tree.
Auricularia mesenterica (S. F. Gray) Persoon
, ‘Tripe-fungus’, is bracket-shaped with a hairy upper surface and reddish purple or deep purple lower surface which when fresh has a greyish bloom due to the formation of the spores.
There are several fungi in the group Auriculariales in Britain, but many of them are inconspicuous and are identified with difficulty except by the expert. Sebacina incrustans (Fries) Tulasne is a common more obvious example of the resupinate forms. It grows as a cream or ivory-coloured, soft fruit-body encrusting twigs, leaves, grass and soil.