Appearance
The erect, stalked cylindrical sporangia are arranged into bundles or clusters that are 7–15 mm tall. Each sporangia are supported by a thin, shining, black stalk that is 3–7 mm long. The bright rusty brown color of mature sporangia lightens to a pale brown after the spores have been dispersed. Spores measure 5 by 7 µm and have a smooth to minutely punctate surface texture.
Habitat
The slime mold grows on decaying wood. When the fruit bodies consist of milky white sporangia, they are a favoured food source for ''Philomycus'' slugs, such as ''P. carolinianus'' and ''P. flexuolaris''. The slugs emerge at night from under flaps of bark and migrate to more exposed area at the top of wet logs, bypassing more mature, pigmented fruit bodies for the younger white ones. The slugs eat the sporangia stalks from the top down. The feeding preference of ''Philomycus'' slugs for immature white sporangia is not seen in other slug species.References:
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