Big, Blobby Slime Mould

 

 Walking back from the polling station on the day of the general election - 4th July - I came across this large, pale slime mould newly emerging from a mossy, recumbent beech trunk. From the size and colour I assumed it was Brefeldia maxima. 

 

Over the next couple of weeks, I returned to the site to watch the spore mass develop. Through the first 48 hours, it turned a deep black-currant red.

...and then dried out and turned chocolate brown.

Brefeldia maxima has a well-formed, continuous skin covering the spore mass (called the cortex) and this slime mould did not, and on examining the spores with a microscope more discrepancies appeared: 

The retuculate spores and net-like capillitium suggest this could be Symphtocarpus amaurochaetoides. My main reservation about that id is that the spore mass was so much larger than it should be - about 40x12cm where the description (in 'The Myxomycetes of Britain and Ireland" by Bruce Ing) suggested 5cm diameter was usual.

You can monitor or contribute to this observation on iNaturalist, here.

 

 

On my last visit to check on the slime mould, a large sphere of spore mass had fallen off the log and landed on the forest floor. A dor beetle had found it, and seemed happily engrossed in rolling it around the leaf litter.

I just caught the tail end of the performance on video: dor beetle exit stage down to the consternation of the mites.

Stemonitis Development

 Develomental sequence for a slime mould - Stemonitis Sp. 

Growing on rotten Alder wood. From Millhouse,  Argyll. 7pm, 23 April 2024

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14 hr

 

 

40 hr

Slime Mould Activity

 

I've been seeing quite a lot of slime mould activity this august. The video is approximately 400 times actual speed.

 

 


 

 

Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa














Metatrichia floriformis

Didymium

 I've seen quite a few slime moulds about recently. I think this one is Didymium melanospermum which likes growing on mosses.

False Puffball

 This is Reticularia lycoperdon the false puffball - it is a slime mould that fruits by producing a foamy mass that expands from cracks in the wood in which it lives. 

It then hardens and dries out. The pale, silvery cuticle cracks and falls away...

... to reveal the dusty brown spore mass which then gets carried away on the wind. (Photos sequence taken on 11th, 16th and 23rd of April)

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Below is a second sequence showing earlier stages of development - it begins as a globular mass before developing a cuticle. (Photos taken on 17th and 19th of April)

Arcyria denudata

Arcyria denudata

 A small, but very brightly coloured slime mould that releases clouds of spores of the same colour. Found on rotting wood.

Arcyria denudata

More Blobs

Every so often I find a strange blob of something growing in the woods. Trying to identify what they are is often challenging - it's hard to tell if they are fungi or slime moulds or something else entirely (eg. star slime from gutted toads.)

 But this week, with the aid of a slightly more comprehensive field guide, I resolved two of my longest standing mystery blobs:

Tremella steidleri

Blob 1 was an impressive gelatinous lump I found growing on the side of a mossy oak in 2007. Revisiting the site last week, I found a smaller but similar blob. It was right next to some Stereum hirsutum brackets, and looking through Tremella again I found this species which has a distinctive, knotty form, and a distinctive, frosty bloom. The way the ageing fruiting body disintegrates into slime might also be distinctive enough to aid in identifying similar blobs.

Postia ptychogaster - old, weathered specimen

Postia ptychogaster - fresh specimen

Blobs 2 & 3: One from 2010 and one from 2016, I couldn't figure these out until I was looking up a very ordinary bracket fungus from the genus Postia  and saw an illustration of Postia ptychogaster on the same page.

Stemonitopsis typhina

Sporangia of Stemonitopsis typhina

Scrambled Egg Slime Mould

Fuligo septica - scrambled egg slime mould

Fuligo septica - scrambled egg slime mould

More Frosty Slime Mould

More Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa macro photos.

Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa - frosty slime mould

Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa - frosty slime mould

Fish Egg Slime Mould

What strange things you can find in the woods! This one is Tubilifera arachnoidea - a slime mould whose plasmodium stage rather resembles fish eggs...

Look Closer

Coprinellus micaceus - glistening ink-cap

I was admiring the black, squiddy heads on some expired ink-caps on a rotten tree stump yesterday. When I got closer to photograph them I discovered a whole world of tiny, little things growing beneath.

Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa, 

The white pom-poms are a slime mould - Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa, I haven't identified the tiny, orange cup fungi, yet.

Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa

Slime Mould Eats Fungus

This is Physarum polycephalum - a slime mould that has become somewhat of a celebrity due to its performance in laboratories and mazes. 

Here it is in its natural habitat moving over and cleaning out a  small bracket fungus Stereum subtomentosum. Fungi are among its favourite foods.