Have you ever walked out into the garden and seen what looks like Fido urped up his dinner? This amazing pile of yuckiness is actually a slime mold.
Unlike other plant cells, slime mold cells have no cell wall. Instead, they are one giant, gooey cell with a whole bunch of nuclei. This enlarged cell is called a plasmodium. As the tissue breaks down, you may see dark-colored spots of red liquid on the surface. In a couple of weeks, the mass will flatten out and dry.
Besides being ugly, dog vomit fungus is not harmful. Even if there was a way to get rid of them (which there isn’t), they don’t hurt anything other than your sense of beauty and aesthetics. In fact, slime molds are an important part of biodiversity in the garden. They help break down woody materials and return those nutrients to the soil.
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