English

Noun

Jew's-ear ‎(plural Jew's-ears)

1. A kind of edible fungus, Auricularia auricula-judae, growing on tree-trunks, formerly used for medicinal purposes.
   • 1979, Angela Carter, ‘The Erl-King’, The Bloody Chamber, Vintage 2006, p. 99:

     Over the hearth hang bunches of drying mushrooms, the thin, curling kind they call jew's-ears, which have grown on the elder trees since Judas hanged himself on one; this is the kind of lore he tells me, tempting my half-belief.

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