Snow fungus

Tremella fuciformis

Tremellaceae

A translucent white jelly used in Chinese kitchens for skin, lung Yin, and a silky soup.

Culinary jelly fungus of Chinese dessert soups.

Parts used: Fruiting body
Traditional notes: Dry cough · Dry skin folklore · Nourishing dessert soup
Grow · USDA 6b: Subtropical hardwood; indoor bags Buy a fruiting bag unless you already do sterile culture. In work: Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov · Dec
Harvest: When the lobes are full and still white.

A fruiting bag is the home path. Partner culture is a lab sport.
Harvest lobes while they are still white and full.
Dry the surplus. It reconstitutes into the silk soup.

Safety

Known mushroom allergy

Lore

Silver ear, snow fungus. Chinese banquet soup and a Qing-dynasty beauty recipe. It is a parasite on other fungi, grown now on blocks, and it has almost no flavor of its own on purpose.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.