Possibly rare slime mold found on ends of living tree roots

[Richard Balzer]

It only grew at the very end of living tree roots that had been severed from logging machinery. (or landslide, not totally sure)

The roots appeared to be leaking a constant slow drip of water. And this mostly white (with splotches of bright orange) slime was growing right on the dripping ends of the roots. There were spots were pieces of the slime had fallen along with the drops onto the ground.

Me and my friend were thinking this could have been a pretty rare find. We theorize that the species lays dormant underground near roots, and when the proper damage occurs, it then releases its "swarm chemical." (I'm new to this, forgive me)

They feed on whatever bacteria may grow on the damaged root, and then eventually fall down to ground from dripping, in order to go back to a single cell form.

This could be a symbiotic relationship. Since slime molds eat bacteria, maybe this is a way of preventing damaged tree parts from becoming infected by other more parasitic fungi or what have you? And maybe the tree give them something in return.

Again, those last 3 paragraphs were my speculations. I don't know a ton about slime mold.

[ian]

Any movement on this little monster? The best way to make a guess at an ID is to look for the fruiting bodies.

[Richard Balzer]

unfortunately not. I was afraid of that.

If only I had a time lapse camera.

[ian]

You can pick up an outdoor time lapse cam quite cheaply,  though i wouldn't want to leave one on the woods.  It could just be yeast living off the sap - I've done woodland management and seen a lot of fermenting sap coming out cuts at this time of year.  The only way to be sure would be to culture it or catch it fruiting. 

[Ingrid Glass]

Hi Richard, I found and photo'd something not dissimilar oozing from cut logs and from stumps in a nearby park, and sent the pics to Kent's slime mould expert David Mitchell, who had come across this himself once before. He said it was not a slime mould but didn't know what it was, just told me to keep an eye on it. I did..it eventually dried up and disappeared and also, under the microscope it had no discernible structure whatsoever. I *think* something was combining with the oozing sap to make it look odd, but annoyingly I'll never know. But sadly not a myxo (well, not mine anyway..)