Things that lurk at the bottom of the garden....

After another Teams meeting, I rushed down the garden to grab a few shots just as it was starting to rain...again. We have a pile of willow logs which are now maturing nicely, and support a range of fungi, mosses and even some slime moulds.

This salmon-pink formation represents the early stages of the fruiting body of Strawberry Slime Mould  Dictydiaethelium plumbeum, a new species for the garden which I've only seen once before, in Old Sulehay Forest. Like many fungi and slime moulds, it has a very wide distribution occurring across pretty much the whole of the Northern hemisphere. As the fruiting body matures a somewhat metallic-looking dark-grey skin forms (see extra), which is presumably why it has the specific name 'plumbeum' meaning lead-like.