Please help me identify a fungus/growth
hugoshop
Posts: 5
I am no gardener so I am after the help of experts.
Last year we covered our front garden with slate chippings. We followed all advice; Flattened the ground, laid a double membrane and bought slate from a local builders merchants etc.
All was lovely until yesterday. I was picking leaves off the slate and noticed a strange sort of growth attached to one chunk. Investigating further, this "growth is under the top layer of a huge area of my slates. I've actually stopped digging now because it just kept going and going & it was distressing me too much!
It's like a yellowy/white paper that is stuck to the underside of the slate. It seems to attach to the slate and then spreads onto the next piece etc.Nothing can be seen on the surface. It's just when you start turning it over.
I've been back to the builders merchants who have no idea and have never seen or heard of anything like it before. They suggested it may be a nest??
I've Googled but found nothing.
Has anyone had anything like this and if so could you advise me what I need to do?
All help greatly appreciated
Posts
Could you please post a pic? Sounds like lichen.
Just charging camera & phone will post a pic asap!
It's literally like layers of thin paper. I've dug some more and the area affected is around a large fir tree. ie a metre to a metre and half all the way around it.
Wondering if the roots may be something to do with it.
Pic to follow shortly. Thanks
Do these pictures help at all?
The stuff covers a very large area.
That looks like dead flowers or leaves fallen off a shrub or tree and starting to decompose, IMO.
Thank you for your thoughts and giving my problem your time.
There isn't another area of the garden. Its just an area between 2 drives covered in slates. There are no other flowers.
I also honestly don't think its decomposing leaves. There are no skeletons of leaves or shapes of leaves. it is literally like dried paper sticking slates together. Also parts of it has "tendrils" or "shoots" off it around the edges as if it is growing outwards.
If it were leaves, it also odd that I can actually make a boundary around the area where this stuff is and on one side every slate is covered and on the other (literally 2 inches away) there is nothing - yet!
The only thing I can see on google is dog vomit. It's not on top of the surface as I've seen in pics but wondering if cit an actually grow under stones??
Thanks for your help
It looks to me like a decomposing slime mould ... there are many sorts, one of which is called Dog Vomit. If this is the case it'll disappear before long. It may reappear each year for a while. It's feeding on small amounts of organic matter under the slate chippings and will do no harm.
Last edited: 21 November 2017 06:42:38
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I agree with what Dove has said
Mostly harmless it's just found the perfect conditions to grow (with the shelter from the tree).
Thank you so much for all your help and advice. I'll stop stressing about it and keep my fingers crossed that it'll go away!
It will ... and sleep easy ... there's enough in life to stress about without fretting about slime moulds
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.