Strange yellow growth appears in woman's garden: 'A doozy'
The mass scattered across the ground at the woman’s Fremantle home is harmless — yet fascinating, experts say.
A woman was left scratching her head this week after she wandered outside and discovered a strange yellow mass sprawled across her garden. The soft-looking growth suddenly “came up” on a heap of “clean hardwood mulch”, the homeowner from Fremantle, Western Australia, explained online on Tuesday.
“Haven’t seen this before — can anyone enlighten me as to its toxicity for the garden and how to get rid of it, if it is a problem growth?” she asked members of a local Facebook group. Photos show what appears to be a bright, fluffy fungus spreading across the wood chips at the base of a plant.
Despite her fears, numerous Aussies jumped in to assure the woman the bizarre growth was a “doozy” of a slime mould, which is harmless — yet very fascinating.
Dog vomit slime mould commonly found in Aussie gardens
After reviewing the images, Botanic Gardens of Sydney’s chief scientist, Professor Brett Summerell, confirmed to Yahoo News the mass is a species of slime mould — a type of amoeba — named fuligo septica, which is otherwise “sometimes known as scrambled egg slime or dog vomit slime mould”.
“It is common on mulch and starts off as this bright yellow and then turns dark as the spores form,” he explained.
Slime mould expert Sarah Lloyd told Yahoo the species is “very common in Australia” and can be found across the world.
“It is possibly the most common slime mould, because it often appears on mulch in home gardens (and also in the bush on logs and stumps and the ground) and it can be very large — up to dinner plate size,” she said.
Ms Lloyd said the photos taken in the woman’s garden “show the plasmodial stage developing into the fruiting body [spore bearing] stage, which is one almost spherical structure”.
The mould will eventually break down and there is no need to remove it, she added.
“Just appreciate one of the amazing wonders of the natural world! Most slime moulds are much smaller [around 1-2 mm tall] and some are very beautiful.”
Interesting facts about slime mould:
There are over 900 species of slime mould
They have no brain but can move and even solve mazes
Slime mould loves to eat uncooked porridge oats
Slime mould releases airborne spores like fungus to reproduce
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