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pretzel slime mold
hemitrichia serpula
51.4427, 6.06087
Field Notes
Description:
If you look closely at the fruiting body of Hemitrichia, you can see some fuzzy stuff coming from the plasmodiocarp. If you mount a bit of this fuzz, you'll see some spores embedded in a matrix of threads called the capillitium. The capillitium is often heavily ornamented, and in Hemitrichia it looks kind of like a hemp rope. The capillitium is made of lime (calcium carbonate), which makes its beauty even more amazing. The capillitium of a slime mold is thought to function as a time-release mechanism for the spores, holding them in so that they are released more slowly. Compare this to one of those scrubbers you keep in your kitchen sink-- you scrub your dishes and little bits of food get caught in it. These little pieces of food, like the spores of a slime mold, eventually get washed or blown out over a long period of time. It's probably the slime mold's way of hedging its bets about when the best time for spore release might be. ( http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/oct2003.html )--> botit-botanic / tom's volk, ( http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&cp=26&gs_id=3q&xhr=t&q=hemitrichia+se… )--> sporepicture i-net
Habitat:
-SPORANGIA: forming elongate, winding, branched plasmodiocarps, 0.4 to 0.6 mm. wide, usually uniting into a close net, golden yellow or brownish yellow, often seated on a reddish brown hypothallus.
-PERIDIUM: of two layers, the outer membranous or cartilaginous, yellow, or brownish yellow from deposits of refuse matter, the inner membranous, delicately marked with a network resembling fan-tracery.
-CAPILLITIUM: an elastic tangle of twisted, sparingly branched, yellow or orange threads 5-6 µm diam., marked with three or four, rarely more, regular, sinistral, spiral bands, usually spinose, rarely smooth; longitudinal striae often distinct; free ends pointed.
-SPORES: Yellow, reticulate with narrow bands forming a net with from nine to twelve meshes to the hemisphere, 10 - 12 µm diam.; border 0.5 - 1 µm wide.
-Plasmodium: Milky white, then yellow.
-HABITAT: On dead wood.
-DISTRIBUTION: Cosmopolitan
( http://hiddenforest.co.nz/slime/family/trichiaceae/trich06.htm )--->hiddenforest , ( http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Hemitrichia+serpula )--> discoverlife, ( http://slimemold.uark.edu/fungi/default.aspx?NavControl=search&selected… )--> the eumycetozoan project
Notes:
An often easy to recognise family as the spore mass is typically brightly coloured, producing stalked or sessile sporangia. A capillitium often consisting of solid or tubular, smooth or sculptured, free or attached threadlike elements
( http://hiddenforest.co.nz/slime/family/trichiaceae/trichiaceae.htm#hemi… )--> hiddenforest
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