This colorful slime mold, Fuligo septica, is known to gardeners as the Dog Vomit Fungus, but it is not a fungus. Slime molds are fascinating beings more closely related to amoebas than to mushrooms, and you should really read up on them. For example, this species has a worldwide distribution, and Wikipedia helpfully informs us that “in Estonian mythology it was thought to be leftovers from kratt.” That, of course, tempts us to find out what a kratt is; it turns out to be “a creature formed from hay or of old household implements by its master, who then had to give the devil three drops of blood for the devil to bring life to the Kratt.” That in turn tempts Father Pitt to find out a lot more about Estonian mythology.
Father Pitt has tried to adjust the color to make the bright yellow as close as possible to what he actually saw, but some colors in nature are simply too vivid to reproduce accurately on your screen.
