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Project Noah Nature School
Lycogala epidendrum
It is a species of plasmodial slime mould, also known as myxogastria or myxomycota, which is often mistaken for a fungus. They consists of ameboid cells united by a sheet of slime. They became visible when the form their fruting bodies to spread their spores. In this case, the fruiting bodies are called aethalia. These appear as small cushion-like blobs measuring about 3–15 millimetres in diameter. Colour is quite variable, ranging from pinkish-grey to yellowish-brown or greenish-black, with mature individuals tending towards the darker end. While immature they are filled with a pink, paste-like fluid. With maturity the fluid becomes a powdery mass of minute gray spores.
On a dead pine tree trunk. Pine and Holm oak forest
In the second picture one aethalium is broke liberating the pinkish spores
Spotted on Jan 14, 2013
Submitted on Feb 10, 2013
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Added to "Slime Molds" mission