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I need a bit your help on this Physarumwith stalked limy sporocarp. The mature sporocarp is grey and its red-mahagony long stipe, absencse of columella and lime nodes in capitulum is suggesting P. pusillum. Spores fits I think what pushes me away is the fact that the young sporocarps where pinkish-salmon, then steel blue and finally chalky grey-white and that they were growing on soil which had a mixture of organic matter (farm animal/chicke bed?) composed of kind of wood chips not on herbaceous substrate.
Here is two pics of the immature and semi-mature myxocarps. If
P. pusillumis usally like this when young, let me know. I can provide more pics and data on request. Here is a nice image of the mature sporocarps, 4 months after collection. Note the blackened plasmodium and the yellowish tinge at the base of the sporocarp. Soil calcareous. Photos of capitulum lime nodes and spores at x1000 are provided here. Sporocysts 0.4-06mm; Spores 9-11um with fine spinulose surface, sometimes aggregated forming dark bands or craters. The spores has a wide border which i don’t know what it is !!! Hi MaxRum Nice photos – you’ve captured the capillitium beautifully. I always find that difficult.
Your ID looks likely. However, I don’t know for sure if the sporocarps are this colour when young but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I think the thick layer you see around the spore is just optical sectioning of the spore wall at high magnification/shallow depth-of-field, but I could be wrong.
Would it be possible to get a sample of this from you if you have any spare and if the substrate is amenable? It looks like it may be a bit crumbly on drying.
Kind regards,
John
Hi Pitufo john! Thank you for your opinion. The spores are like that, even at x400 and mounted in water+lactic acid. Another closely related taxon is Physarum pusillopse but they have larger spores (12um) and sporocarps (0.8-1.2mm), so I have discarded it upon that. The largest sporocarps in this population were 0.8mm but on average, 0.5mm.
Like you I think we have a quite unusual P. ousillum but within the range of the species, main differences being the pink-red immature sporocarps, the ring around the spores and the Y-shaped capillitium lime nodes (maybe this is irrelevant!)
I have a soil bolus that i can send iy but I am concerned about breaking and getting damaged during transport. Let me post some more Myxo that I have for ID maybe you get interested in a second sample and i send everything at one go.
Capitullum image: using stereomicroscope I transfer abt 10 sporocarps ( one or two onle with part of stalk) in drop of tap water (ours already with some lime!) and gently break the sporocarp with 3-5 stabs with dissecting needle (not more) and then I swirl around but not over. I get something like that by luck.
I thought the substrate might be a bit flaky and hard to transport. There is some info here on how to box up myxos should you need it http://www.fungi.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1463 I might be able to get you a closer look at the spores if you want to put a few sporocarps in a small bag. Are you in the UK?
Kind regards,
John
That’s cool! I’m from M alta btw and an amateur on Myxos! I wonder if I can buy empty match boxes online as we do not use them that often. I check with my relatives too. In the meantime I attach another image of the spores which now assumed a blue-berry pie
I think what you are seeing in the spores is an artefact of treatment with Lactic Acid Cotton Blue – It may be dehydrating the centre of the spore due to osmosis or some other effect. Cheers,
John
I think you are right, its like shrinking and collapsing over itself. I will mount some spores in water and congo red soon TNX
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