OUT AND ABOUT 
...Valda Dedman 
Funny Fungi (Slime mould, 
lichens and vegetable 
caterpillars), You Yangs sugar 
gums and leaf litter, Growling 
Grass Frog romance, crakes and 
Jerringot, hairy caterpillar, and .. 
Was it a plant or was it an animal? 
When it was given to me, it 
resembled a pale pink coconut 
macaroon, but it had previously 
looked ‘like tripe’ and had been 
found on moist tan bark covering a 
narrow garden bed near a fence in 
suburban Newtown. 
It was Fuligo septica, one of the 
slime moulds, which are not true 
fungi, but members of the 
Myxomycetes (or Mycetozoa), in a 
class all of their own. When the 
delicate crust was broken, a mass 
of chocolate spores puffed out. 
Upon germinating, the spores 
develop into amoeba-like little 
creatures, which come together in a 
jelly-like mass (plasmodium) without 
a definite shape, that creeps about 
in search of food until it matures. It 
then settles down as a sporangium, 
the pale pink fruiting body that 
looked so invitingly edible but which 
contained limey granules instead of 
coconut. 
Fuligo septica is known from around 
the world as ‘Flowers of Tan’ 
because it frequently occurs on 
spent tan in tan yards. It is more 
often yellow than white in its slime 
stage. Other Myxomycetes may 
have a coral-red plasmodium, their 
sporangia may be on stalks and the 
spores are sometimes entangled in 
a dainty filigree. 
Some researchers claim that slime 
moulds have a primitive intelligence, 
because in an experiment they 
successfully negotiated their way by 
the shortest route to food at the end 
of an agar gel maze. 
Lichens also produce spores and 
are now generally regarded as 
specialised fungi, which have the 
ability to photosynthesise because 
they capture algae or cyanobacteria. 
Fungi lack chlorophyll and cannot 
manufacture carbohydrates on their 
GEELONG NATURALIST Vol. 37 No. 1 
_ own, so they break down organic 
matter to obtain nourishment. 
Lichenised fungi, with the help of 
their algal partners, use the sun's 
energy to fix carbon from carbon 
dioxide in the air. 
A lichen is made up of a 
mycobiont (the fungus) and a 
photobiont (the alga) which 
supplies it with carbohydrates — 
as sugar alcohols in the case of 
green algae and as glucose from 
cyanobacteria. | Cyanobacteria 
can also fix nitrogen and may 
provide nutrients to the host plant 
on which the lichen is situated. 
Lichen fungi, unlike normal fungi, 
do not decompose plant material. 
Simon Schwendener, who 
discovered the duality of lichens, 
wrote a wonderful description in 
1869: 
This fungus is a fungus of the 
class Ascomycetes, a parasite, 
which is accustomed to live upon 
others’ work. Its slaves are green 
algae, which it has sought out, or 
indeed caught hold of, and 
compelled into its service. It 
surrounds them, as a spider its 
prey, with a fibrous net of narrow 
meshes, which is gradually 
converted into an impregnable 
covering, but while the spider 
Sucks its prey and leaves it dead, 
the fungus incites the algae found 
in its net to more rapid activity, 
even to more vigorous increase. 
Lichens are classified according 
to the fungus present. A fungus 
can unite with an alga and later 
switch to a cyanobacterium or 
even use an alga in one 
environment and a 
cyanobacterium in another. Many 
lichen species are involved and 
only a few types of algae. 
Together the fungus and alga can 
colonise habitats where they 
could not live separately. The 
fungus can live on pure rock, for 
example, and algae and 
cyanobacteria can live where it 
would otherwise be too dry. 
Around 20% of all fungi are 
lichenised. Every lichen has a 
unique fungus. Over 40% of 
these fungi belong to the 
ascomycetes, the  cup-fungi, 
which produce spores in a sac- 
shaped cell. Lichenised fungi 
also produce fruiting bodies 
containing spores. Many are 
May 2001 
perennial and long-lived, not like an 
ephemeral mushroom or toadstool. 
Once the spores are released they 
must seek out a compatible alga or 
cyanobacterium if they are to grow 
into new lichen. Because this may 
be a risky process, many lichens 
can also reproduce vegetatively, 
from fragments or by producing 
powdery soredia or isidia which are 
dispersed by wind, water or small 
animals. 
The You Yangs Park is a great spot 
for lichens. The granite boulders are 
perfect surfaces for crustose 
species, which pattern them with 
grey-greens and yellow and black. 
Tree branches may contain six or 
seven different lichens; the dry 
atmosphere of the You Yangs rain 
shadow assists their survival. 
Lichens can survive extreme 
drought periods, because they can 
switch off metabolic processes. 
They must have water and some 
can exist even just on fog and dew. 
However, their lifespan is short in 
high rainfall areas such as tropical 
rainforest, although they grow 
prolifically in such places. 
If you want to know more about 
these fascinating plants, take a look 
at a new book, Lichens, by William 
Purvis, published by the Natural 
History Museum, London. It 
contains some absolutely stunning 
photos. Visit the website of the 
Lichen Information System 
www. lis. freeweb.superevs.it/index.h 
tm and reread the report of the talk 
given to the GFNC by Dr Kathleen 
Ralston in the Geelong Naturalist 
Vol. 35, No. 4, August 1999. 
sly 
- 
~ 
nN 
It's time to go looking for ordinary 
fungi, not that I’d call any fungus 
ordinary. Diverse, beautiful, 
extraordinary, weird, perhaps, but 
never ordinary. You might find one 
of those cross-over species, 
Cordyceps, the vegetable 
caterpillars. C. gunnii, C. robertsii 
and. C. hawksii parasitise large 
subterranean moth larvae. The 
fruiting bodies look like little clubs 
sticking out of the soil and if you dig 
down carefully, you'll find them 
attached to the mummified 
caterpillar. Be prepared to dig as 
deep as one metre, though. The 
FUNGIMAP CD-Rom was launched 
on 31st April and is available for $15 
