We have some wierd looking fungus growing near some onions in our garden. I’m hoping someone can help identify what it is.
It certainly doesn’t look edible. It is a blob resembling cat barf, except that when you look closely you notice that it is very fibrous. It also is oozing a yellow substance that looks remarkably similar to egg yolk.
We noticed this growing in an area of the garden where we had added quite a bit of compost combined with a commercial topsoil. Does anyone know if the onions caught up in the middle of this stuff would be edible if harvested in another month or two? I’m assuming so, but I don’t know how long any toxins produced by this fungal beast would persist.
Filed under: biology, gardening, science | Tagged: biology, compost, fungus, gardening, mushroom, mystery, onions, science
Hi, Thaddeus
Could it be “dog vomit fungus”? I am no expert on these things but when I had a weird fungus appear on my field I did some searches and came across the term. Mine wasn’t that, but I loved the name and your description of it as like cat barf made me think of it. Even if not, it’s great to just know there is something called that, don’t you think?
I looked it up on google. That’s probably it. There were some photos that looked similar, but not exact. One site, http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/chicago_gardener/2007/06/dog-vomit-slime.html, said that there are a number of varieties.
This site identified it as a plasmodium, which is not a fungus. It is one giant cell with many nucleii. It also said that it is edible. I will opt on the side of caution, however.
BTW, yes, it is great to know there is something called dog vomit fungus.