Posted on What is this mushroom on 5/13/19
Then I saw it on the Opal Creek Hike H379 on 5/18/15
Slime molds are amoebas and not fungi.
They can actually move across the surface
of a log as a slimy mass before
eventually stopping when conditions are
right and then they turn into a spore mass.
Posted on What is this Mushroom
From Hike to Opal Creek
5/18/15 H379
Although many slime mold species fruit on
wood they do not form a penetrating and absorptive mass
of hyphae in the wood substrate.
Rather, slime molds form
structures called plasmodia which are naked (i.e., without
cell walls) masses of protoplasm which can move and engulf
particles of food in an amoeboid manner.
Slime mold
plasmodia creep about over the surfaces of materials,
engulfing bacteria, spores of fungi and plants, protozoa, and
particles of nonliving organic matter.
At some point,
plasmodia convert into spore-bearing structures.
From messiah.edu Click Here for more info
Slime molds have a high resistance to toxic levels of metals; one author was prompted to write "The levels of Zn in Fuligo septica were so high (4,000–20,000 ppm) that it is difficult to understand how a living organism can tolerate them. (from Wikipedia)
