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Star jelly (also called astromyxin, astral jelly, pwdr sêr, star rot, or star shot) is a gelatinous substance sometimes found on grass or even on branches of trees. According to folklore, it is deposited on the earth during meteor showers. Star jelly is described as a translucent or grayish-white gelatin that tends to evaporate shortly after having “fallen.” Explanations have ranged from the materials being the remains of frogs, toads, or worms, to the byproducts of cyanobacteria, to the paranormal.〔〔〔 Reports of the substance date back to the 14th century and have continued to the present day.〔〔 ==History== There have been reports of ''pwdr sêr'' (also ''pwdre sêr'' or ''pydredd sêr'', Welsh for 'star-rot') for centuries.〔Fort, C. "The Book of the Damned" pp41-50, 1919〕 John of Gaddesden (1280–1361),〔Gordon, p. 467〕 for example, mentions ''stella terrae'' (Latin for 'star of the earth' or 'earth-star') in his medical writings, describing it as "a certain mucilaginous substance lying upon the earth" and suggesting that it might be used to treat abscesses.〔"stella terre, que est quedam mucillago jacens super terram, prohibet apostemata calida in principio", from John of Gaddesden, "Rosa Medicinae" or "Rosa Anglica", Venice edition of 1502, folio 28. There is another reference to ''stella terrae'', as a component in a medical recipe, on folio 49 of the same work.〕 A fourteenth-century Latin medical glossary has an entry for ''uligo'', described as "a certain fatty substance emitted from the earth, that is commonly called 'a star which has fallen'".〔"Uligo, i. grassities quedam que scatet a terra que vulgariter dicitur stella que cecidit", from Mowat, J. L. G. "Sinonoma Bartholomei", Oxford, 1882, p. 43〕 Similarly, an English-Latin dictionary from around 1440 has an entry for 'sterre slyme' with the Latin equivalent given as ''assub'' (a rendering of Arabic ''ash-shuhub'', also used in medieval Latin as a term for a 'falling' or 'shooting' star). The Oxford English Dictionary lists a large number of other names for the substance, with references dating back to the circa-1440 English-Latin dictionary entry mentioned above: star-fallen, star-falling, star-jelly, star-shot, star-slime, star-slough, star-slubber, and star-slutch.〔See the Oxford English Dictionary, under the words ''nostoc'', ''star'', and ''star-shot''.〕 The slime mold ''Enteridium lycoperdon'' is called "caca de luna" (moon’s excrement) by the locals in the state of Veracruz in Mexico. A long article in the paranormal magazine ''Fate'' declared star jelly to be of extraterrestrial origin, calling it "cellular organic matter" which exists as "prestellar molecular clouds" which float through space. In ''The Book of British Amphibians and Reptiles'' (page 138), author M Smith states that star jelly is most likely formed from the glands in the oviducts of frogs and toads. Birds and mammals will eat the animals but not the oviducts which, when they come into contact with moisture, swell and distort leaving a vast pile of jelly like substance sometimes also referred to as otter jelly. In 1910, T. Mckenny Hughes ruminated in ''Nature'' as to why meteors were associated with star jelly by poets and ancient writers, and observed that the jelly seemed to "grow out from among the roots of grass". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Star jelly」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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