Our solar greenhouse is equivalent to Concord in perhaps mid- or late June at the moment. While the night-time air temperatures aren't as high as they would normally be at that time of year, the ground temperature is holding somewhere between 68 and 73 degrees. We have to fight to keep the daytime temperatures down below 90 F on a sunny day, using both the greenhouse's openings, three household fans, plus a high-powered blower exhausting hot air outdoors.Recently, a new growth appeared: slime mold. We didn't recognize what it was until it started looking more familiar by the end of the first day. At first it was as if someone had sprinkled little piles of bright gold cornmeal in an area of one of the garden beds (like the photo at top right where one specimen is getting cozy with one of our eggplant plants). In hours, it had started to transform to that familiar "dog vomit" appearance -- one we see often standing and darkening for weeks and months following the original outbreak of the "mold" (like the photo at bottom right).
But it's not a mold, really. We generally think of slime molds as a type of fungi, and they were classified as such until fairly recently. For a variety of reasons, though, they have become classified as Protista, which also includes Protozoans and Algae. One of the rationales is that Fungi don't move, and slime molds do -- not a thought I find particularly enjoyable.
This webpage from Utah State University offers more fascinating information, "[The slime mold] Physarum polycephalum is a plasmodial slime mold. The yellow blob we notice is a huge single cell. Unlike most cells, which have only one nucleus, this cell contains millions of nuclei. Physarum plasmodia are usually 3 or 4 cm ( ½ - 1" ) in diameter, but can get to be 30 cm (about 1 foot) or more in diameter, and 3 to 5 cm thick. This giant cell moves, but only pictures taken over several days can show its progress. Its top speed is 1 mm per hour."
Now, doesn't that sound like fun? Watching slime mold move... Slime molds don't harm plants, except that they might create unwanted shade, and their spores can stain masonry or sidewalks. They will eventually break down and disappear, but if you don't like that canine vomitus look in the garden all summer, they can be scraped up or turned under with a shovel. But if the right conditions exist in the future, it will return.
Slime molds: coming to anywhere in Concord in just a few weeks.
Don't miss this wonderful video below of time-released slime mold and mushroom growth -- the slime mold is the first species shown.
Photos: Top -- ©2009 Deborah Bier; Bottom -- Courtesy of WikiMedia Commons
