But what’s that white stuff on mulch? Yes, that odd, spongy mass of white spores is actually a slime mold. But a slime mold isn’t actually a fungus in the sense of the word as we understand it.

Single-celled slime molds usually start to aggregate when resources ... where it grows to a fruiting body with a stalk and spores in the head. Only the spores will survive to see the next habitat.

Caption When threatened with starvation, slime molds aggregate into towers topped with slimy spheres that stick to passing insects, which carry the spores out into the world. But new research ...

When the food runs out they use the same trick as mushrooms. They send lots of tiny spores into the air to make new slime moulds in other damp places. So, if you take a trip out to see the autumn ...