Hydnellum peckii

Can you guess what this is?

What is this?

I think it looks like some sort of jelly dessert, or a bleeding brain, or an alien Star Trek food.

In reality, it is Hydnellum peckii, an inedible fungus found in Scotland,  northern mainland Europe, and the USA. This fungus species is a mycorrhizal species that forms mutually beneficial relationships with coniferous trees.

Although very variable in cap shape and colour, the fruitbodies invariably have pinkish tones. Young caps are often (but not always) decorated with bright red liquid droplets that exude from the upper surface. Particularly beautiful when solitary, the fruitbodies more often occur in small groups that merge and become fused at the caps and sometimes also at the stems.

Hydnellum peckii’s
Photos from:
http://www.itsnature.org/

This unusual looking fungus has several descriptive common names. These include strawberries and cream, the bleeding tooth fungus, the bleeding Hydenellum, the Devil’s tooth, or the red-juice tooth. However, these descriptive names are apt when they are young, but not in its older age when it just becomes an ordinary brown.

Although very variable in cap shape and colour, the fruitbodies invariably have pinkish tones. Young caps are often (but not always) decorated with bright red liquid droplets that exude from the upper surface. Particularly beautiful when solitary, the fruitbodies more often occur in small groups that merge and become fused at the caps and sometimes also at the stems.