This Silky Oak, long ago self-sown in the wrong place, had to be taken down. But its twintrunked stump is still giving life.
One rainforest tree seed has found its way in between those trunks and is somehow thriving.
But someone seems to have cleaned their paintbrush on its bark. No, it’s my old friends, the slime moulds, this time a smoother variety of the family, one I had not yet met.
On the other side, a different slime mould resembles, not paint, but sawdust, scattered down the bark and coating the fungi which like this stump too.
I never cease to wonder at the many forms this can take. And to think I once did not know of the existence of slime moulds…
But have a look at this breathtaking video from Australian photographer Stephen Axford: