Unidentified orange blob fungus found on timber wall, possible Lycogala species?

[travisdh]

Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone had seen anything like this, my thought was that based on previous posts it may be L. epudendrum or L. terrestre however looking more at it, it looks much more filimentious than slime mould like.

Does anyone have any idea what it may be?



As you can see the mass it quite big, getting a bit bigger. It is orange and is currently growing on a timber substrait (building timber)

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

[Lancashire Lad]

Hi Travis, and welcome to Wab.

It may well be a slime mould of some sort, but I doubt whether you will gt a positive ID, as the photograph is too small to show sufficient detail. (Though even with the best of photographs it is still impossible on many occasions ).

If you could upload a larger photo, we might be able to tell you what it is.

Have a look at this thread for details of what would be ideal: -

Help us to help you identify fungi

Regards,
Mike.

[travisdh]

Sorry about that, these are the only other pictures I have.

[ashgale]

sorry to be the bearer of bad news,
but it looks like it could be dry rot - Serpula lacrymans, which will need urgent treatment, if its not already to late !

ashgale

[travisdh]

Thank you very much for the assistance, may i ask simply because I am so impressed how you can come up with what appears to be a close identification based on just a visual identification.

My background (just qualified a few years ago) is actually in Science, and i am always in awe over how someones memory can allow for identifying even ballpark species. I had in my head that since it was timber, if it was not a slime mould it may be a basidomycetes spp member, but how did you get to such detail.

Is there a process, or a resource you use to say, If fungi is on timber, it is probably from this family, then if it is this color, it may be more species and so on. Or is it just from memory.

Certainly because i am new to the area i look forward to learning a lot more, but i am very interested in how to build up on the ability to identify bacteria and fungi (mainly mould and fungi) from both visually and based on spores etc.

[ashgale]

Hi Travisdh,
(and welcome to W.A.B by the way)

please dont take my id as being a positive identification, as, although it looks like dry rot, it could equally be a different species altogether,
i'm sure some one more knowledgeable will be along soon to say if it is dry rot, or not,

as for recognising fungi from a photo alone, this is usually only possible with a few species, most would require lots of other details (see the "help us to help you" post on the fungi forum for more details on this), and in most cases the use of a microscope, along with years of experience in fungi, and even then it is not always simple,

ther are lots of resources available, like WAB's own fungi A-Z & Gallery, along with other websites and books, a search of google images can also be usefull, even if its not totally accurate with a lot of the images there,

WAB fungi forum is perhaps one of the best places to learn about fungi, there are lots of experts here whose knowledge is amazing , and they are always very willing to help beginners like ourselves with id's and other aspects of fungi,

im sure you will soon begin to gain some knowledge of fungi by using WAB,

ashgale.

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by travisdh

. . . . i am very interested in how to build up on the ability to identify bacteria and fungi (mainly mould and fungi) from both visually and based on spores etc.

fungi we can help on - but bacteria - they need culturing (and laboratories, with all the protection from potential biohazards!!); and I fear it does look somewhat like dry rot; Melanie might well be able to comment with her background in architecture/buildings

cheers

Chris