Chocolate Tube Slime Stemonitis axifera

e6filmusere6filmuser Registered Users Posts: 3,376 Major grins
edited October 10, 2016 in Holy Macro
This is what the organism is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stemonitis_axifera

http://www.messiah.edu/Oakes/fungi_on_wood/club%20and%20coral/species%20pages/Stemonitis.htm

In the late afternoon of 21 September I searched piles or rotten tree logs which we keep in our garden as a habitat for insects, mushrooms and slime moulds. To my surprise, I found a shallow circular dome, about one inch (25mm) diameter on one of the more crumbly, dry chunks of (probably willow) wood. It most resembled slug or snail eggs but the pale yellow colour, and the tightly-packed arrangement, led me to believe that it was a Myxomycete, and not the common Dog’s Vomit one Fuligo septica, which is a much deeper yellow and not with such spherical bodies.

I photographed it and then kept checking it every hour or two, for any changes. The time periods mentioned in this account start with the initial photographs as time zero. Because most of the changes were after dark, I brought the log indoors. This was not for my comfort but to have good ambient light for framing and focusing. It also helped with placing and supporting the second and, when used, third flash guns, the main one being on an L-bracket on the camera.

These images, the lemon yellow stages, were at zero, 3h, 5h and the final one, where the yellow colour had almost faded away, at 6h. (All rounded to nearest hour). The chocolate stages are to follow.

Olympus EM-1 (manual mode), Kiron 105 at f16, twin or triple TTL flash, hand-held with some support from the substrate.

Harold

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3 hours:

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5 hours:

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6 hours:

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Comments

  • Lord VetinariLord Vetinari Registered Users Posts: 15,900 Major grins
    edited October 7, 2016
    Fascinating series of shots Harold.
    Brian V.
  • e6filmusere6filmuser Registered Users Posts: 3,376 Major grins
    edited October 10, 2016
    I had been puzzled by some inconsistencies between details I see in my specimen and those in published descriptions.

    I now realise that this is because mine is not S. axifera but S.flavogenita. The first images are of the plasmodium, which is usually white it this species, sometime yellow or orange. It was misleading that it normally lives on leaf litter, whereas S. axifera lives on decaying wood, where I found it.

    Harold
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