Tremella

Tremella fuciformis Berk.

Sources

14 listed

Best forChosen by people who want a gentle, almost neutral tasting food fungus for soups and desserts, and by anyone curious about its gel forming polysaccharide in supplements or skincare. It is a kitchen ingredient with a long Chinese record, not a remedy.

Clinical evidence

Emerging

Real World Significance

26Regional historical significance

Breadth 17 Depth 10 Density 30 Convergence 25 Continuity 78

SafetyUse with cautionRated caution for handling rather than for the fungus. Cooked tremella is an ordinary food, but dried pieces soaked warm and long have carried a bacterial toxin behind severe and sometimes fatal poisoning.

Tradition

TCMFolk medicine

Common preparations

Dried mushroomDecoctionPowderCapsuleExtract

In short

Summary of findings for quick reference

Tremella is a Chinese story. Tremella fuciformis is a white jelly fungus of warm, humid forests and grows wild on several continents, from East and Southeast Asia to Australia, the tropical Americas, the eastern United States and southern Africa. Only in China did a cuisine and a tradition grow up around it. Pharmacological reviews speak of more than a thousand years, but the dated record begins in Tongjiang in Sichuan in 1832, with cultivation on logs by 1894 at the latest, and runs from the costly tonic of the Qing era to the cultivated everyday ingredient of today. Berkeley gave the species its botanical name in 1856. Europe has no tradition of it, in the kitchen or in medicine.

Chemically, everything about this fungus comes back to one family of molecules. The fruiting body carries an acidic polysaccharide of the glucuronoxylomannan type, a mannan backbone with side chains carrying glucuronic acid and xylose, spread over a wide range of molecular sizes. That long, branched, charged chain binds a great deal of water, which is why soaked tremella turns into a gel and why the isolated polysaccharide is formulated as a humectant in skincare. In practice it matters that the polysaccharide can come from the fruiting body, from spores, from mycelium or from a submerged fermentation broth, and that those routes give different molecules, so a finding from one preparation cannot be read onto another. Cultivation is unusual too, since the fungus cannot fruit on its own and is grown alongside a companion wood decay fungus, Annulohypoxylon stygium.

One small randomised trial has tested the fungus itself, in 75 adults with subjective memory complaints over eight weeks, and found greater improvement than placebo on a memory questionnaire and on memory tests. No independent group has repeated it yet. A second trial tested a drink combining fish roe, snow fungus and yeast, so its result cannot be credited to the fungus alone. Everything else, the skin work included, comes from cell culture and animals. In the European Union tremella is sold as a food, with no authorised health claim, and a Chinese medicinal registration from 2002 applies in China only. The point to take seriously is handling. Soaked tremella and wood ear left standing warm for too long have carried bongkrekic acid, a bacterial toxin behind fatal poisonings that cooking does not destroy, so soak it cold and briefly, cook it the same day and throw away anything slimy, discoloured or sour smelling. And do not confuse it with golden ear, a different fungus with a literature of its own.

Clinical evidence ↔ Historical significance

We display two separate evidence categories: clinical evidence from modern trials and historical significance from documented healing tradition. Both are valuable, but they answer different questions.

In every encyclopedia entry we evaluate two distinct categories of evidence. Clinical evidence as used in trials meets a narrower but scientifically essential bar. At the same time, the hundreds of thousands of plant species worldwide have only partially been captured and tested in modern studies.

Alongside the trial picture our researchers compile a comprehensive overview of where and since when a plant has been used across different traditions of natural medicine. When a plant has been used as a medicinal plant in many cultures across many generations, that historical significance deserves to be visible too.

Our position: a truly informative overview emerges only when both categories sit side by side. We communicate transparently what counts as what.

Overview

Tremella fuciformis is a white jelly fungus, not a plant, and it looks the part: a loose rosette of thin, wavy, translucent lobes growing on dead broadleaf wood. Mycology places it in the family Tremellaceae, and the part used is the fruiting body, the gelatinous mushroom itself. Dried, it shrinks to a hard, pale, crumpled knot; soaked, it swells many times over and turns almost clear. The common names follow that look: snow fungus, snow mushroom, white jelly mushroom and silver ear, and the Chinese names yin er and bai mu er, meaning silver ear and white wood ear.

In the kitchen this fungus is prized for texture rather than taste. It is close to neutral in flavour and has a soft, slippery bite, which is why it is simmered into sweet soups with rock sugar, jujube, goji berries or pear, and also used in savoury dishes and salads. Behind that texture sits an acidic polysaccharide that holds a great deal of water, and the same molecule is what the supplement and cosmetics industries have taken an interest in. Cultivation is unusual: the fungus does not fruit on its own and is grown together with a companion fungus, Annulohypoxylon stygium, which opens up the wood for it.

There is one small randomised trial in people, a second trial that tested a combination drink rather than the fungus alone, and a large body of cell and animal work. In the European Union tremella is a food, and no health claim for it is authorised. The point that deserves real attention is handling, because dried tremella soaked warm for too long has been a vehicle for a dangerous bacterial toxin.

History

The story of this fungus is Chinese, and the part that can be dated is younger than often claimed. Pharmacological reviews speak of more than a thousand years of cultivation and consumption in China but name no dated text for it. Historians of Chinese mycology are more precise. They place the discovery of yin er in Tongjiang County, Sichuan, in 1832 and the first cultivation on logs no later than 1894, while noting that the old records do not fully agree. It was traded as a highly prized tonic. Chinese medicine places it among the moistening, nourishing foods and speaks of moistening the lungs, soothing the intestines, nourishing the skin and prolonging life, which are the categories of a tradition rather than medical findings. The fungus grows wild on several continents, yet only in China did a cuisine and a tradition grow up around it.

The early growers worked largely by luck. In February or March they felled broadleaf trees, mostly oaks, stacked the logs crosswise and waited for spores drifting in the air to settle on them, and the harvests stayed poor. When and how to fell the trees was family knowledge, handed down the generations and kept secret. In June 1932 the Sichuan provincial government had production in Tongjiang surveyed, then the leading growing area, and a year later medicine merchants in Zhangzhou in Fujian were raising the fungus on the Tongjiang model, soon traded as Zhangzhou silver ear. Shanghai was the hub where the dried fungus changed hands.

Science arrived in the twentieth century. In 1914 Wu Bingxin published the first study of the fungus by the methods of modern biology, describing white to ivory, translucent fruiting bodies 3 to 15 centimetres across. In 1941 the mycologist Yang Xinmei, working in Meitan County in Guizhou, isolated the yeast like spores of the fungus for the first time, and from 1942 to 1944 he applied spore suspensions to logs in the field, raising the share of logs that bore a crop from about 31 to 58 percent. In 1954 he described a second fungus that always appeared on the wood before the snow fungus, the xiang hui jun or incense ash fungus, and showed that it was an organism of its own rather than a stage of the snow fungus. That companion, now identified as Annulohypoxylon stygium, is the key to modern cultivation, in which both fungi are inoculated together onto sawdust or crop waste.

Europe has no chapter in this story. Neither household remedy books nor monastic medicine knew the fungus, and it does not appear among the German Commission E monographs. The modern chapters are recent. Cultivation in bags of sawdust and crop waste such as cottonseed hulls turned a luxury into an everyday ingredient. In 2002 the Chinese drug regulator approved enteric coated capsules of the fungus's polysaccharide as a medicine, a status with no European counterpart. The cosmetics industry now uses the polysaccharide as a moisture binder, and in 2018 a research group at Ewha Womans University in Seoul ran the first randomised trial of the fungus itself.

Mechanism

What makes tremella behave the way it does is one family of molecules. The fruiting body carries an acidic heteropolysaccharide of the glucuronoxylomannan type: a mannan backbone, mostly alpha 1,3 linked, with side chains at the 2, 4 and 6 positions, glucuronic acid and xylose among them. Analyses of purified fractions report mannose, xylose, fucose, glucuronic acid, glucose and galactose, and molecular weights spread across a very wide range, from roughly 580,000 up to about 3,700,000 daltons. The practical consequence is physical rather than pharmacological. A long, branched, charged chain of this kind binds water and builds viscosity, which is why soaked tremella turns into a gel and why the isolated polysaccharide is used as a moisture binder in cosmetics.

The second thing worth knowing is that not all tremella material is the same material. The polysaccharide can be taken from the fruiting body, from spores, from mycelium or from a submerged fermentation broth, and those routes do not yield identical molecules. Extraction method, molecular weight and branching all shift the behaviour, which is exactly why a result from one preparation cannot be carried over to another. Beyond the physics, the laboratory literature is large and preclinical. Cell culture and rodent studies report effects on immune cells, on antioxidant markers, on gut bacteria and on nerve cell outgrowth in a cultured cell line. All of that is in vitro and animal work. It describes what the molecule does in a dish or in a mouse, and it does not show what a bowl of soup does in a person.

One randomised trial has tested the fungus itself. Ban and colleagues (2018, Journal of Medicinal Food) enrolled 75 adults who reported subjective cognitive impairment and gave them 600 mg or 1200 mg of Tremella fuciformis daily, or placebo, for eight weeks in a double blind design. The groups taking the fungus improved more than the placebo group on a subjective memory complaint questionnaire, and on tests of short term memory and executive function their gains over placebo were statistically significant. An exploratory MRI analysis also found that grey matter volume in four brain regions developed differently between the groups. Unwanted effects were about equally common in all three arms, between 35 and 41 percent. It is one small eight week study with only 15 people on placebo, and no independent group has repeated it yet.

The second trial is not a trial of tremella. Lin and colleagues (2023, Nutrients) gave 64 adults a formula beverage containing fish roe, snow fungus and yeast, or a placebo drink, for eight weeks, and reported faster and more accurate performance on memory card tasks. Because three ingredients were given together, nothing in that result can be assigned to the fungus on its own, and the study was funded by a supplement company that employs two of the authors. For tremella on its own it proves nothing.

Everything else is preclinical. A dermatology review (Mineroff and Jagdeo, 2023) surveys work on skin ageing, photoprotection, wound healing and barrier function and says plainly that most of it is limited to in vitro and animal models, with clinical research still needed. Immune, antioxidant, metabolic and gut microbiota findings sit in the same category. In Europe tremella is a food, and the EU list of authorised health claims, Regulation (EU) No 432/2012, has no entry for it. The Chinese medicinal registration of a polysaccharide preparation applies in China and says nothing about European food law.

Evidence

5 Outcomes evaluated. Sorted by grade.

Outcome	Class	Grade	Effect	Studies
Subjective memory complaints and cognitive test performanceAdults reporting subjective cognitive impairment	Emerging	C	Single small trial	1 study
Cognitive performance from a multi ingredient beverageAdults with subjective cognitive complaints	Emerging	D	Combination product	1 study
Skin moisture binding and cosmetic useLaboratory models and cosmetic formulations	Insufficient	I	Laboratory signal only
Everyday tonic food in Chinese cookingPeople eating the cooked fungus as food	Traditional	D	Traditional food use
Immune, metabolic and gut microbiota effects of the polysaccharideCell cultures and rodents, not people	Insufficient	I	Preclinical only

Key studies

The studies that matter.

Randomised controlled trial · 2018 · 75 participants
In 2018 Ban and colleagues in Seoul gave 75 adults with subjective memory complaints 600 mg or 1200 mg of Tremella fuciformis daily, or placebo, for eight weeks. The fungus groups improved more on the complaint questionnaire, and on short term memory and executive function tests their gains over placebo were statistically significant, with unwanted effects no more frequent than on placebo. It is the only trial of the fungus alone, small, with just 15 people on placebo, and not yet repeated.
Ban S, Lee SL, Jeong HS, Lim SM, Park S, Hong YS, Kim JE. Ban S, Lee SL, Jeong HS, Lim SM, Park S, Hong YS, Kim JE. Efficacy and Safety of Tremella fuciformis in Individuals with Subjective Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Med Food. 2018;21(4):400-407. doi:10.1089/jmf.2017.4063
Observational study · 2023
China's national surveillance system analysed every reported bongkrekic acid outbreak from 2010 to 2020, 19 outbreaks with 146 people ill and 43 deaths across all foods. The largest single outbreak, 52 people in Shandong in 2012, was linked to tremella and caused no death. This analysis is why the entry is rated caution and spells out firm soaking rules.
Zhang H, Guo Y, Chen L, Liu Z, Liang J, Shi M, Gao F, Song Y, Chen J, Fu P. Zhang H, Guo Y, Chen L, Liu Z, Liang J, Shi M, Gao F, Song Y, Chen J, Fu P. Epidemiology of foodborne bongkrekic acid poisoning outbreaks in China, 2010 to 2020. PLoS One. 2023;18(1):e0279957. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0279957
Review · 2023
In 2023 Mineroff and Jagdeo reviewed the dermatology research on tremella, covering skin ageing, photoprotection, wound healing and the skin barrier. Their conclusion is clear, most of the work comes from cell culture and animals and clinical studies are still missing. The review explains the cosmetic interest, but it supports no effect on human skin.
Mineroff J, Jagdeo J. Mineroff J, Jagdeo J. The potential cutaneous benefits of Tremella fuciformis. Arch Dermatol Res. 2023;315(7):1883-1886. doi:10.1007/s00403-023-02550-4
Laboratory study · 2020
In 2020 Xu and colleagues studied the polysaccharide from tremella fruiting bodies in the laboratory. They showed that it forms flexible chains that tangle and thicken a solution from about 5 mg per millilitre, and measured strong moisture retention. That explains why tremella soup sets to a jelly and why the molecule works as a humectant, and it is a physical measurement made in the laboratory.
Xu X, Chen A, Ge X, Li S, Zhang T, Xu H. Xu X, Chen A, Ge X, Li S, Zhang T, Xu H. Chain conformation and physicochemical properties of polysaccharide (glucuronoxylomannan) from Fruit Bodies of Tremella fuciformis. Carbohydr Polym. 2020;245:116354. doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116354

Usage

Forms and preparation

Dried tremella is the usual form. Rinse it, then let it swell in plenty of cold water. Do the soaking in the refrigerator rather than on a warm worktop, keep it short, and if you want it overnight then keep it cold the whole time. Pour the soaking water away. Trim off the hard yellowish base where the rosette was attached to the wood, tear it into bite sized pieces and cook it the same day. The classic preparation is a slow simmer. Give the pieces thirty minutes to an hour in water or a light stock until the lobes soften and the liquid thickens noticeably, and that thickening is the polysaccharide doing its work. The best known version is a sweet soup with rock sugar and some combination of jujube, goji berries, dried longan, lotus seed or pear. It also works in savoury broths and braises and cold dressed as a salad, where it takes on whatever it is cooked with. Powders, capsules and standardised extracts are the supplement forms. They are convenient, they are not the same material as the cooked fungus, and they are covered by no European approval. If you use one, look for a label that names the species in full and states what the extract is made from.

Dosage

There is no official dosage, because there is no monograph and no authorised claim in the European Union. In the kitchen the reference is a household one: a single dried rosette swells many times over and is generally enough for a pot of soup shared by two to four people, which is the scale most recipes work at. The one dose that exists in the clinical record is a study dose, not a recommendation. The 2018 trial used 600 mg or 1200 mg of Tremella fuciformis daily for eight weeks in adults. That figure describes what was tested in one small study. It does not establish a safe or effective dose, and it does not transfer to a different extract or a different preparation.

Special populations

Cooked tremella is an everyday food, eaten by children, older people and pregnant women in the cultures that use it, and the fungus itself carries no specific warning for those groups. Concentrated extracts and capsules are different, because no pregnancy, breastfeeding or paediatric safety studies exist for them, so they are best left aside in those situations. Where extra care genuinely belongs is the handling. For infants, frail older people and anyone with weakened immunity, buy from a reliable source, soak cold and briefly, cook thoroughly and discard anything that looks or smells off.

Safety

Safety profile

The serious hazard attached to this fungus is not the fungus. Dried tremella and dried wood ear left standing in water at room temperature for many hours can be colonised by Burkholderia gladioli pathovar cocovenenans, which produces bongkrekic acid. The bacterium grows best at 30 to 37 °C and makes its toxin at 22 to 30 °C, ordinary room temperature in summer, and in the soaked mushroom outbreaks reported from Guangdong and Zhejiang the mushrooms had typically soaked for more than two days. Poisoning starts with vomiting and abdominal pain, can damage the liver, kidneys and brain and can kill within a day of the first symptoms, and there is no antidote, only supportive care. Chinese national surveillance counted 19 bongkrekic acid outbreaks between 2010 and 2020 across all implicated foods, with 146 people ill, 139 admitted to hospital and 43 deaths. Tremella was among the implicated foods, and the largest single outbreak of that decade, 52 people taken ill from a commercially sold product in Shandong in 2012, was linked to Tremella fuciformis. None of the 43 deaths was attributed to tremella, and the Shandong outbreak recorded no death. The practical rules follow from that and are not difficult. Soak dried pieces in the refrigerator, not on a warm worktop. Keep the soak short and never leave a bowl standing overnight in a warm room. Pour the soaking water away, cook the mushroom the same day and refrigerate leftovers promptly. Throw out any piece that has turned slimy, sticky, discoloured or sour smelling, and do not try to rescue it by cooking it for longer, because bongkrekic acid is heat stable and survives cooking. Do not rely on your nose alone either. In Chinese outbreaks from contaminated fresh rice noodles the food looked, smelled and tasted normal, so time and cold protect you better than any sniff test. Buy from suppliers whose storage you trust. Beyond that, systematic human safety data are thin. In the one randomised trial unwanted effects were no more frequent than with placebo over eight weeks, and that is the extent of the controlled evidence. No regulator has published an interaction list for tremella, and no systematic study of interactions with medicines has been published. Allergy is possible, as with any mushroom. If you take prescribed medicines and are considering a concentrated extract rather than food amounts, raise it with your doctor or pharmacist first.

Drug interactions

No European regulator has published an interaction list for tremella, because it has no herbal monograph here, and no systematic human interaction studies have been published. So the interaction profile is simply unknown. Food amounts in ordinary cooking are unlikely to be a concern. For a concentrated extract taken alongside prescribed medicines, particularly where dosing is tight, speak to a doctor or pharmacist first.

Contraindications

There is no regulator contraindication list for tremella, because it is a food in the European Union and no European authority has assessed it as a herbal medicine. What follows is sensible practice rather than an official list. Known allergy to mushrooms. Concentrated extracts and capsules in pregnancy and breastfeeding and for young children, because no safety studies exist for those groups. Any batch that has soaked warm for many hours, or that has turned slimy, discoloured or sour smelling. That is a discard, not a judgement call.

Side effects

In the single controlled trial, the overall frequency of unwanted effects in the groups taking the fungus was similar to placebo over eight weeks. Beyond that there is no systematic record of side effects in people. Eaten in quantity, a gel rich food can feel heavy, and allergy to the fungus is possible as with any mushroom. The severe reactions described in the literature are poisonings from spoiled material, not reactions to the fungus itself.

Look-alikes

Botany

Family

Tremellaceae

Native regions

China, where cultivation and the documented tradition are concentrated, East and Southeast Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, Tropical and subtropical Americas and the eastern and southern United States, including Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, where it is widely recorded, Scattered records in India, southern Africa and occasionally in Europe

Harvest window

Wild fruiting on dead broadleaf wood in warm, humid months; cultivated fruiting bodies harvested year round on wood substrate

Habitat

A wood inhabiting jelly fungus of warm, humid forests, fruiting on dead and dying broadleaf branches and logs. It cannot live off the wood alone. It feeds through a companion wood decay fungus, Annulohypoxylon stygium, and commercial cultivation reproduces that partnership by inoculating both fungi onto sawdust or wood substrate. The part used is the fruiting body.

Identification & foraging

A loose, brain like or flower like rosette of thin, wavy, translucent lobes, white to ivory when fresh, usually 3 to 15 centimetres across, soft and gelatinous to the touch, drying to a hard, brittle, pale knot that swells enormously in water. It has no gills, no pores and no stem, which separates it at a glance from ordinary cap mushrooms. Foraging it carries no special danger, since no toxic lookalike is documented for it. The two risks that matter are the wrong species in the pot, which is a disappointment, and a spoiled batch, which is not.

Similar plants and look-alikes

Unpleasant

Wood ear (Auricularia auricula-judae)

A different genus and a different mushroom, brown to black, firmer and ear shaped, where tremella is white to pale cream and forms a rosette of wavy lobes. Both are sold dried and rehydrated before cooking, which is where shoppers mix them up, and they behave differently in a pot. Wood ear is not toxic, but it is not a substitute. The one thing they truly share is a hazard of handling: both have been linked to bongkrekic acid poisoning after long, warm soaking, so treat both by the same cold, short soaking rule.

Unpleasant

Golden ear (Naematelia aurantialba and N. sinensis, formerly Tremella aurantialba)

Golden yellow rather than white, and a separate species, first described in Tremella and since moved to Naematelia. In 2024 the cultivated golden ear sold in China as jin er was described as a species of its own, Naematelia sinensis. It is edible, and like snow fungus it needs a partner, in its case the wood fungus Stereum hirsutum, but its polysaccharide chemistry and its research literature are its own. Reviews of golden ear are sometimes cited as if they were about snow fungus, so check the full botanical name before transferring any finding.

Unpleasant

Yellow brain (Tremella mesenterica)

The common yellow to orange jelly fungus of European and North American woods, in the same genus but a different species. It shares the gelatinous, brain like form, which makes the confusion understandable, and it is not toxic. Its polysaccharide is studied separately and is not the same material. In Central Europe a jelly fungus on a branch is almost never snow fungus, which has only a handful of European records, but in the eastern and southern United States the two grow in the same woods.

Unpleasant

Fruiting body versus fermentation derived polysaccharide

Not a different species but a different product from the same fungus. The polysaccharide can come from the cooked fruiting body, from spores, from mycelium or from a submerged fermentation broth, and those routes give molecules of different size and branching. Supplement labels often say only tremella. Since a finding obtained with one preparation does not carry over to another, look for a label that names the species in full and states what the extract was made from.

FAQs

Which part of tremella is used, and is the extract the same thing?

The part used is the fruiting body, the gelatinous mushroom that grows on dead wood, sold fresh or, far more often, dried. An extract is not the same thing. The polysaccharide can be produced from the fruiting body, from spores, from mycelium or from a submerged fermentation broth, and the resulting molecules differ in size and branching. A cooked bowl of soup, a spoon of powder and a standardised extract are three different products, so read the label for which one you have.

What is in dried tremella?

Mostly carbohydrate. The first Chinese analyses, made in the 1930s, found dried tremella to be about 65 to 71 percent carbohydrate, 7 to 9 percent protein and around 1 percent fat, with 12 to 19 percent residual water. Much of that carbohydrate is the gel forming polysaccharide, and recent cultivation research describes the fruiting body as rich in polysaccharides, protein and dietary fibre. In a bowl of soup a handful of soaked lobes brings texture above all.

Is tremella the same as wood ear or black fungus?

No. Wood ear, Auricularia auricula-judae, is a different genus and a different mushroom: brown to black, firmer, ear shaped. Tremella fuciformis is white to pale cream and forms a loose rosette of wavy lobes. The two often sit on the same shelf, both come dried and both are rehydrated before cooking, which is where the confusion comes from. Their one genuinely shared point is a handling rule: both have been linked to the same spoilage hazard when soaked warm and long.

Why does dried tremella need careful soaking?

Because the risk sits in the soaking water, not in the fungus. Dried tremella and dried wood ear left to swell for many hours at room temperature can be colonised by Burkholderia gladioli pathovar cocovenenans, a bacterium that produces bongkrekic acid, a toxin behind severe and sometimes fatal food poisoning. Chinese surveillance lists tremella among the implicated foods, including the largest single outbreak of the decade from 2010 to 2020, in which 52 people fell ill. The toxin survives cooking, so prevention is everything. Soak in the refrigerator, keep the soak short, cook the same day and throw away anything slimy, discoloured or sour smelling.

Does cooking make a doubtful batch safe again?

No. Bongkrekic acid is heat stable, so boiling or long simmering does not break it down. Once a batch has stood in warm water for too long, the bin is the only safe place for it. Do not trust your eyes and nose to decide, because in Chinese outbreaks from contaminated fresh rice noodles the food looked, smelled and tasted normal. What keeps you safe happens before the pot, a cold, short soak and cooking on the same day.

Does tremella do anything for skin?

It holds water, and the rest is laboratory work. The polysaccharide binds a great deal of moisture, a measurable physical property, and that is why it appears in cosmetic formulas as a humectant. Claims that go further, about ageing, photoprotection or barrier repair, rest on cell culture and animal studies, as a 2023 dermatology review says directly while calling for clinical research. Nobody has shown in people that eating tremella changes how skin looks.

Is there an approved health claim for tremella in Europe?

No. In the European Union tremella is sold as a food and as a supplement ingredient, and the EU list of authorised health claims, Regulation (EU) No 432/2012, has no entry for it. Nor has the European Medicines Agency written a herbal monograph for it. Whatever you read about it here is background reading rather than an approved benefit.

Is tremella safe in pregnancy or for children?

As a cooked food it is an ordinary ingredient, eaten by families in China including by children, and there is no signal that the fungus itself is a problem. Concentrated extracts and capsules are a different matter, because no pregnancy, breastfeeding or paediatric safety studies exist for them, so they are best left aside. What matters for everyone, and more for small children, older people and anyone with weakened immunity, is the soaking rule. Buy from a source you trust, soak cold and briefly, and do not rescue a batch that smells wrong.

Is golden ear the same fungus?

No, and it matters when reading studies. Golden ear, jin er, was described as Tremella aurantialba and later moved to Naematelia, and in 2024 the cultivated golden ear was named a species of its own, Naematelia sinensis. It fruits only as a parasite of a different wood fungus, the hairy curtain crust Stereum hirsutum, and has its own polysaccharide chemistry and research literature, so its findings do not transfer to Tremella fuciformis. The same applies to yellow brain, Tremella mesenterica. When a paper or a product says tremella, check the full botanical name.

References

14 sources.

Ban S, Lee SL, Jeong HS, Lim SM, Park S, Hong YS, Kim JE. Ban S, Lee SL, Jeong HS, Lim SM, Park S, Hong YS, Kim JE. Efficacy and Safety of Tremella fuciformis in Individuals with Subjective Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Med Food. 2018;21(4):400-407.. 2018. doi:10.1089/jmf.2017.4063
Lin YK, Lin YH, Chiang CF, Jingling L. Lin YK, Lin YH, Chiang CF, Jingling L. Effectiveness of Fish Roe, Snow Fungus, and Yeast Supplementation for Cognitive Function: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial. Nutrients. 2023;15(19):4221.. 2023. doi:10.3390/nu15194221
Mineroff J, Jagdeo J. Mineroff J, Jagdeo J. The potential cutaneous benefits of Tremella fuciformis. Arch Dermatol Res. 2023;315(7):1883-1886.. 2023. doi:10.1007/s00403-023-02550-4
Zhang H, Guo Y, Chen L, Liu Z, Liang J, Shi M, Gao F, Song Y, Chen J, Fu P. Zhang H, Guo Y, Chen L, Liu Z, Liang J, Shi M, Gao F, Song Y, Chen J, Fu P. Epidemiology of foodborne bongkrekic acid poisoning outbreaks in China, 2010 to 2020. PLoS One. 2023;18(1):e0279957.. 2023. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0279957
Anwar M, Kasper A, Steck AR, Schier JG. Anwar M, Kasper A, Steck AR, Schier JG. Bongkrekic Acid - a Review of a Lesser-Known Mitochondrial Toxin. J Med Toxicol. 2017;13(2):173-179.. 2017. doi:10.1007/s13181-016-0577-1
Centre for Food Safety, Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, Hong Kong. Centre for Food Safety, Hong Kong. Bongkrekic acid poisoning and its prevention. Food Safety Focus, 213th issue, April 2024.. 2024. Source
Wang R, Cao H, Zhang J. Wang R, Cao H, Zhang J. Scientific Explorations of the Snow Fungus (Tremella fuciformis Berk.) in Republican China: A Brief Review. Indian Journal of History of Science. 2015;50(2):340-344.. 2015. doi:10.16943/ijhs/2015/v50i2/48244
Liao Y, Hong L, Zhao J, Li S. Liao Y, Hong L, Zhao J, Li S. Advances in extraction, structural characteristics, bioactivities, structure-activity relationship, quality control and applications of polysaccharides from Tremella fuciformis: A review. Carbohydr Res. 2026;563:109849.. 2026. doi:10.1016/j.carres.2026.109849
Li S, Zhao K, Li J, Li X, Zhao H, Cui R, Li J, Guo J, Bian X. Li S, Zhao K, Li J, Li X, Zhao H, Cui R, Li J, Guo J, Bian X. Recent advances in polysaccharides from Tremella fuciformis: isolation, structures, bioactivities and application. Front Nutr. 2025;12:1663327.. 2025. doi:10.3389/fnut.2025.1663327
Yang D, Liu Y, Zhang L. Yang D, Liu Y, Zhang L. Tremella polysaccharide: The molecular mechanisms of its drug action. Prog Mol Biol Transl Sci. 2019;163:383-421.. 2019. doi:10.1016/bs.pmbts.2019.03.002
Xu X, Chen A, Ge X, Li S, Zhang T, Xu H. Xu X, Chen A, Ge X, Li S, Zhang T, Xu H. Chain conformation and physicochemical properties of polysaccharide (glucuronoxylomannan) from Fruit Bodies of Tremella fuciformis. Carbohydr Polym. 2020;245:116354.. 2020. doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116354
Liu D, Pujiana D, Wang Y, Zhang Z, Zheng L, Chen L, Ma A. Liu D, Pujiana D, Wang Y, Zhang Z, Zheng L, Chen L, Ma A. Comparative transcriptomic analysis identified differentially expressed genes and pathways involved in the interaction between Tremella fuciformis and Annulohypoxylon stygium. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek. 2019;112(11):1675-1689.. 2019. doi:10.1007/s10482-019-01294-4
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