Coral Slime

Most of the day was spent participating in the virtual BSBI Annual Exhibition Meeting, which included a number  of very interesting talks, as well as a well-balanced debate on wildflower seeding. 

I took some time out in the middle of the day for a walk round Castor Hanglands and Southey Wood - too many hours on Zoom is just too tiring!. I found this beautiful patch of my favourite slime mould on a rotting tree stump in the wood. The plasmodium develops into gelatinous spore-bearing structures like star-shaped tentacles that resemble terrestrial Sea Anemones. When they are mature the tentacles are covered in tiny hairs, which individually hold a single spore. Because the spores are not enclosed within the fruiting body, as is the case for all other myxomycetes, a number of biologists have questioned the relationship of Ceratiomyxa to other myxomycetes. So, Coral Slime might not even be a proper slime mould!