Fungi Friday - Dog Vomit Slime Mold
Now for a slimy #fungifriday
This bright yellow stuff is called dog vomit slime mold. I guess it sort of looks like dog vomit?
The Latin name is Fuligo septica.
I wish I had my macro camera lens with me at the time. If so you would be able to see the tiny little bulbs this much is composed of.
The hot humid part of summer brings this stuff out at night.
Then by the end of the day it has grown into a large pile and dehydrated into the more pinkish form on the tree trunk.
Sometimes it will hit something like concrete where it can't get nutrients to grow more. Here it ended up creating a veiny lung like structure and dried as a thin film.
Now this is the form that looks more like dog vomit. Once it has puffed up and dried out it is all over the place. I suspect the spores get spread as dust then they reactivate with heat and humidity at night. It would be interesting to take a timelapse of this as it seems to grow really fast. It is not poisonous but gardeners hate it for its ugly look. There has been some scientific research on it and they have found it has anticancer and tumor compounds in it. The only problem would be figuring out how to extract those compounds for medical use, fire up the smoothie machine lol.
That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)
Thanks again @ewkaw :-) Maybe I'll find a more pleasant one next time.
I find the yellow one very pleasant :D It is super pretty!
Dog ate all the chocolate chips and is barfing all over town.
Omooo, when I read the title, I though it is a mushrooms that grows in a dog vomit, omg hahaha. And thats really a unique one, with their color they become too noticeable.
Its a kind of gross one but it is interesting. I just looked up the timelapse and it kind of breathes.
O-ooo! delicious amounts of vomit :D
Spectacular!
It is all over the place, basically anywhere wood chips are. Sometimes it is in a red or pinkish color but this year it is mostly bright yellow.
Funnily in my last post I had featured the very same slime mold. In German we call it also "Hexenbutter" which means in english "witches' butter".
We also have one called witch's butter here. It is bright yellow but more of a jelly fungi similar to wood ear. I don't think dog vomit slime mold is toxic but I would not want to try it lol. I've actually cooked the witch's butter in soup before though, basically tastes like woodear but maybe a bit more gummy of a texture. https://practicalselfreliance.com/witches-butter/