This might be of interest to the members? The weather being warm and wet (summer!) it is also a good time to find myxomycetes (other than outside the Podium!).

On my regular walk at Newton St Loe I have this week found two species of myxomycete fruiting on old very large pine logs. I attach pictures which need to be magnified slightly to show the species better.

1. Cribraria argillacea is a series of cups on stalks from which the spores have blown away through the overarching (peridial) net which is not very evident (two photos).
2. Arcyria affinis looks like a gathering of bright pink loofahs from which the spores can be seen to be released.

The interest in these two species is that they are exiting the logs from the end since a plasmodium (blob!) can travel through anything its nuclei can pass through and therefore the xylem vessels of the log represent a nice wide highway to travel down but moving outside (laterally) through the xylem walls is much more difficult.

For really good pictures of these species just google the names of look on The Eumycetozoan Project website (University of Arkansas)

Alan F