Dog Vomit Slime Mould

Fuligo septica

On rotting wood, leaves, grass stems, needles. From spring to late autumn.

Aethalia (fruiting bodies) yellow, from 1 to 15 cm across, sometimes larger, of irregular shape. The slimy mass is whitish, yellowish, covered with a calcareous, fragile peridium (skin). The capillitium consists of a network of colourless threads filled with calcareous amorphous granules. Characteristic features: a migrating plasmodium that changes colour, shape and consistency. Beautiful but unpleasantly slimy, sticky, yellow, sulphur-yellow plasmodia (like lumps of flakes) form on rotten wood and herbaceous plants. Common in forests, parks, forest edges and thickets. Inedible.