Geograph - photograph every grid square

This soft pink mass, which is about 1.5cm across, is the plasmodium of the slime mould species Lycogala terrestre (the plasmodium is the stage during which the organism is mobile, slimy, and feeds on bacteria).

The example in this photograph was located on a fallen branch beside the muddy footpath that is shown in NS3984 : Path through the woods. It was clearly just about to form a solid fruiting body (see NS3878 : A slime mould - Lycogala terrestre for some examples), since it had already more or less assumed its final shape. A week later, the pink blob had become a pinkish-brown powdery mass of spores.

[In this case, the colour of the plasmodium and spore mass allowed the species to be distinguished from the similar Lycogala epidendrum (whose fruiting bodies do not reach this size); see NS3781 : A slime mould - Lycogala terrestre for further comments. Compare, also, NS3984 : A slime mould - Lycogala epidendrum.]

(According to accounts I have read, certain slime moulds have been mistaken for discarded gum. I can imagine this specimen being seen in that light. As noted above, this one is certainly a slime mould, as confirmed by its subsequent development, and it was identified to species.)