Nature

Miniature Beauty

I took a few moments at my granddaughter's birthday party to walk around outside with my camera. There was a fallen rotten tree branch that had very tiny, beautiful living organisms growing on it. I've learned to get photos so I can take closer looks. I thought the tiny white ones were mushrooms and the slightly larger orange one was the beginnings of a different kind of mushroom. I was half right. The orange one is in the fungi kingdom but was not developed enough to id past the phylum level. The white ones were entirely different and not fungi at all. They are the fruits of slime mold which is actually under the taxon of Amoebozoa. I got this info when I put them on iNaturalist. Confused yet? Me too. So, back to basics, they are both cool and beautiful. And bottom line, it pays to look at the tiny things in nature.
Basidiomycete Fungi (Phylum Basidiomycota)
Slime Molds (Phylum Mycetozoa)

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