One of the apple trees succumbed to honey fungus late last year. It was cut down and the branches put in an adjoining field prior to being cut up and burned. Then we had all that snow, so they waited for some weeks.
We finally got round to dealing with them last week and found something very interesting along the way. In amongst the beautiful lichens growing along the branches were tiny patches of what looked very much like pink bubblegum. If it wasn’t bubblegum, what was it and how did it get there?
Most blobs were about the size of a pin head whilst others had grown to about 1cm (approx 0.4’’) across. I’d seen something similar, but that was orange and not pink, though also growing on damp, decaying wood. Going back to my books, I looked up the orange blobs and reminded myself that this strange substance is known as a Toothpaste slime mould and apparently they don’t only come in bright orange, but pink as well. They are actually very common, living on dead and decaying wood, and are not considered harmful to living things.
Slime moulds, many classified within the group called Myxomycetes, are puzzling. To start with, for a good while taxonomists couldn’t even decide if they are animals, fungi or something in between. Think about that!
What’s more, they can move, some of them up to 2cm a minute. According to Wikipedia, ‘It has been observed that they can find their way through mazes by spreading out and choosing the shortest path,’ whilst ‘In 2006, researchers at the University of Southampton and the University of Kobe reported that they had built a six-legged robot whose movement was remotely controlled by a Physarum slime mould. The mould directed the robot into a dark corner most similar to its natural habitat.’ Isn’t that just amazing.
Why haven’t I looked into this before? I mean, it isn’t as if slime moulds are rare, it seems that they’re all over the place - on old wood, in leaf litter, on lawns and in soil. There is a whole new world out there just waiting to be investigated. The strange and wonderful world of slime moulds. I can search them out, take pictures of them, look them up, make lists and think about this strange place we call home.
Life cycle of the slime mould