Chocolate Tube Slime Mold

Description:

This slime mold is characterised by the tall brown sporangia, supported on slender stalks, which grow in clusters on rotting wood. Identification within the genus is difficult, and can only be performed with confidence using a microscope.

Habitat:

Notes:

Looks like a clump of thick fur growing out of a log. Closeup it will be seen to be a packed cluster of chocolate-brown, long sausage-shapes on thin hair-like stems. Another common name is tree hair. As a slime mold this organism grows as a large cell containing many nuclei, that crawls through leaf litter eating bacteria, spores and other minute stuff. When conditions are ripe and food is running out, it will develop into the furry patches, passing through short-lived white and pink forms. The chocolate brown tubes contain spores, and will release them, becoming paler as the spores disperse. The white and pink forms are very short-lived, and the brown form is hard to notice on brown wood.