At the start of a Norfolk Study Group fungi foray at Ladybelt Country Park outside Norwich ( 3rd September 2023 ), these sprawling slime mould plasmodia were spotted by all at the car park:

The daughter & I had suggested that this was the plasmodial stage of Fuligo septica, but one member of the foray said that positive IDs of slime moulds at this stage is very difficult.

And for sure, this is correct, but — F. septica is so very common and other species of Fuligo generally less so perhaps, and the so-called “scrambled egg” plasmodial form so distinctive — we were confident it was F. septica.

One of the common names of F. septica is “Flowers of Tan” which is unfortunate — the member of the foray group that queried the ID talked about slime moulds having varying colours and that this slime mould was not tan coloured !

“Flowers of tan” actually comes from fleur de tan which French biologist Jean Marchant described F. septica as — meaning bark flower — “tan” being French for Oak bark I believe.

So, the common name for F. septica should really be “Flowers of Oak Bark”…😉

A couple of hours later the plasmodium was slightly larger:

This was on Saturday and the daughter & I went back in the evening…

Sunday morning…

Sunday afternoon…

and Monday morning…