Didymium melanospermum
(Pers.) T. Macbr.
Description:
SPOROCARPS: Total height 0.5 to 1 mm., gregarious, subglobose or hemispherical, deeply umbilicate beneath, 0.7 to 1 mm. diam., stalked or sessile, often confluent, and occasionally forming flattened plasmodiocarps, white or gray; sporangial wall firm, clothed with stellate crystals of lime.

STALK: cylindrical from a broad base, striate, dark brown, occasionally rufous or partly so, 0.2 to 0.7 mm. long, 0.05 to 0.2 mm. thick, opaque and granular from enclosed refuse matter, sometimes containing crystalline nodules of lime.

COLUMELLA: large, hemispherical, umbilicate, dark brown, rarely whitish, chambered, containing irregular nodules of lime.

CAPILLITIUM: of stout, sparingly branched or simple, flexuose threads, colorless or purplish brown, often showing dark, calyciform thickenings.

SPORES: Dark purplish brown or purplish gray, with thick sporewalls, nearly smooth or spinose, 9-12 ;µm diam.

PLASMODIUM: Colorless or gray.
HABITAT: On dead wood, twigs, and leaves.

DISTRIBUTION: Cosmopolitan, known from Auckland , Dunedin , Gisborne, Nelson and Buller.
Macro images:
Didymium melanospermum
Scale bar
Scale= 1 mm.
 
Didymium melanospermum
Scale bar
Scale= 0.7 mm.
 
Didymium melanospermum
Scale bar
Scale= 0.5 mm.
 
Hidden Forest
Slime Moulds