Comatricha nigra
Description:
SPORANGIA: Total height 1 to 8 mm. Sporangia globose, ellipsoid, rarely short-cylindrical, scattered or gregarious, size variable depending on the length of the stalk

STALK: subulate, slender, shining, black, usually 2 to 8 times the length of the sporangium in globose forms, shorter in cylindrical ones, rising from a more or less distinct hypothallus.

COLUMELLA: usually reaching almost to the summit of the sporangium, branching above and continued into the capillitium.

PERIDIUM: purplish brown; sporangial wall evanescent.

CAPILLITIUM: a more or less dense tangle of purplish brown threads springing from all parts of the columella, anastomosing and branching, of nearly equal thickness throughout, the ultimate branches looped and showing few free ends or marked with short spine-like branchlets.

SPORES: Violet-brown, minutely and closely spinulose, 7-10 µm diam.

Plasmodium: Watery white
HABITAT: On dead wood.

DISTRIBUTION: Cosmopolitan, known from Auckland,.
Macro images:
Comatricha laxa
Scale bar
Scale= 2 mm.
 
Comatricha laxa
Scale bar
Scale= 2 mm.
 
Comatricha laxa
Scale bar
Scale= 2 mm.
 
Comatricha laxa
Scale bar
Scale= 2 mm.
 
Comatricha laxa
Scale bar
Scale= 2 mm.
 
Comatricha laxa
Scale bar
Scale= 2 mm.
 
Hidden Forest
Slime Moulds