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:
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| 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.
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| Postia ptychogaster - old, weathered specimen |
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| 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.
