None in PDD

Fruiting body a sessile sporangium, crowded and often in large groups, globose to subglobose, 0.3–0.6 in diameter. Hypothallus colourless, sometimes encrusted with white lime. Peridium consisting of a single layer, colourless or sometimes encrusted with lime and then pale grey or blue-grey, rough, dehiscence irregular, with the basal part persisting as a cup with an irregular rim. Columella absent. Capillitium consisting of numerous rounded, white lime nodes connected by hyaline threads, the nodes usually united in the centre to form a pseudocolumella. Spores black in mass, dark purple brown in transmitted light, with a distinctive pale area, covered with distinct, dark, rather dispersed warts, 11–12 µm in diameter. Plasmodium translucent white.

An apparently rare species that has been reported from widely scattered localities in Europe. First reported (as Physarum lividum) from New Zealand by Colenso (1891) based on a specimen from Hawkes Bay. Also known from Dunedin (Rawson 1937).

Dead leaves and other types of plant debris; often reported as fruiting on straw.

Nannenga Bremekamp (1991), Neubert et al. (1995), Ing (1999).

Several authors, including Lister (1925), Hagelstein (1944), and Martin & Alexopoulos (1969), considered Physarum licheniforme to represent nothing more than a variety of P. didermoides, but the former differs from the latter in having a peridium that consists of only a single layer, a sporangium that is always sessile, and spores with a distinctive pale area on one side.