Dog Vomit Slime

Now that I've got your attention...

On the wood-chipped path outside my office

Of late, I'm obsessed with slime mold, and one species in particular: Fuligo septica.  Last year, a neighbor cut down several large tuliptrees that had grown too near his house.  His arborist chipped the wood, and our organization took the wood chips for our trails.  This spring, the wood chipped trail has come alive repeatedly with slime mold aggregations.

At first, this slime mold is a strikingly bright, brilliant yellow.

Image from Wikipedia

Image from Wikipedia

But after a day or so, it turns dun-colored and looks like its common name.

I knew this organism was a slime mold, but I knew very little about it, so I checked out the citation on Wikipedia and found out that Dog Vomit Slime (also known in more genteel circles as Scrambled Egg Slime [still not too appetizing] or Flowers of Tan) is one of the most common and widely distributed of the slime molds.

Slime molds are not molds (i.e., fungus) at all despite their common name. They and the other protists (i.e., single celled organisms) are lumped into their own kingdom equivalent to the animals, plants, and fungi, but the classification is constantly in flux because the relationships among these organisms are so poorly known and understood.

Like many slime molds, the cells of this species typically live independently, then based on some unknown cue, they come together and aggregate to form a plasmodium. Each cell gives up its individual existence and merges its cell body and nucleus into a mass that may move in an amoeba-like fashion in search of nutrients. F. septica's plasmodium may range from white to yellow-gray, and is typically 1-8 inches in diameter and 0.4–1.2 inches thick. The plasmodium eventually transforms into a sponge-like aethalium, analogous to the spore-bearing fruiting body of a mushroom, which then degrades, darkens in color, and releases its dark-colored spores. F. septica produces the largest aethalium of any slime mold.

Close-up image of the aethalium.  Soo cool!

In Estonian mythology, the aethalium was thought to be the leftovers from a kratt, a creature created by farmers out of hay and/or farm implements, given life by the devil after the farmer surrendered three drops of blood, and obligated to do the farmer's bidding. F. septica in Finland was believed to be used by witches to spoil their neighbors' milk. This gives it the name paranvoi, meaning "butter of the familiar spirit." In Flemish, it is known as "heksenboter," which refers to "witch's butter."

What strikes me as most odd is that none of the myriad visitors to my preserve that walk past the slime molds ever come in to inquire about them, especially when they're in their bright yellow stage.

Wild Turkeys, Slime Molds, Indian-Pipes and Wood Turtles

Over a decade ago, an individuals with a house bordering a park downstream of the natural area that I haunt released some Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). The turkeys became well established, flourished, and spread downstream and upstream into "my" natural area--and my back yard.

This year was a banner year for poults, and last month three prolific hens gathered their broods together for mutual protection and now patrol the natural area. The combined group appears almost nightly for a birdseed handout, and I'm most happy to oblige. In the wild, turkeys are wary and skittish; here, they are almost pets, though they draw the line at taking food from my hand.
In my previous post, I featured a bright yellow slime mold that reappeared this summer in exactly the same spot on an oak stump where it gathered last summer. By nightfall last evening, only a few hours after I photographed it, the slime mold had ascended to the top of the stump and had reformed itself into what appeared to be a foamy, pale-pink crust. I'm watching for sporulating bodies, but have seen nothing yet. Stay tuned...

This morning, going out for the newspaper, I noticed that Indian-pipes (Monotropa uniflora) had pushed up through the pine straw. I usually associate this saprophytic wildflower that gets its nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi with the autumn, but I'm probably thinking of saprophytic beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana) whose flowering structures often dry out and persist for long periods, becoming most obvious in the winter after leaf fall. My wildflower guide says that Indian-pipes bloom from June through August, so these are right on schedule.

Wood Turtle (Clemmys insculpta)

One of my neighbors sent me these images of a Wood Turtle (Clemmys insculpta) that her daughter found in the creek flowing through "my" natural area this spring. According to the natural area's naturalist, this is their first record of a Wood Turtle, though the species' range encompasses large parts of the northern Piedmont and well beyond. Either we're just too urbanized or no one has been observant enough to record the species before. Incidentally, my neighbor assured me that she and her daughter returned the turtle to exactly the same spot where they found it after they took these pictures in their back yard; I believe her.

Slime Mold Redux 2010

After three weeks of no rain and temperatures in the 90s most of those days (101 and 103 on two occasions!), we finally got some soaking rains over the last few days. Hallelujah! In fact, it rained so hard on Tuesday (July 13) that the creek downstream of my favorite natural area flooded, and a (stupid) 20-year-old tried to ride the rapids on an inflatable swimming pool raft and drowned in the process.

Yesterday evening, between showers, I had a chance to look over my front garden. There's a black oak stump there that's rapidly disappearing, and on that stump, in exactly the same spot that I photographed it last June, was a slime mold. A little bit of research quickly convinced me that the only hope of identification lies in observing the spore-forming bodies that the colony will eventually produce. I'll keep my eyes open. Last year, I don't remember the colony forming sporulating bodies--the mass just seemed to dry up and turn brown, but I probably just wasn't observant.