Bigger, better, Raspberry Slime Mold

Another Raspberry Slime Mold, originally uploaded by Mycologista.

I don't know what I was doing all the other times I was ever in the woods and never saw these. Pretty cool how one absolutely develops an eye for what one is keyed in to looking for (I hear this also applies to life: you see what you're looking for/you get what you expect, etc.).
Here's the tree it was on:

Slime mold day!

Raspberry slime mold, originally uploaded by Mycologista.

While marching to where I thought might be a likely spot to find Black Trumpets (no, I didn't find any, because they are invisible), I found many fascinating and beautiful little slime molds.  These are all quite small (in the grand scheme of things)--the Hemitrichia clavata is little 2mm balls on a stalk. The Chocolate Tube slime is about 1/2" tall.

Hemitrichia clavata

OZONIUM of Coprinellus domesticus

"Carnival Candy Slime," Arcyria denudata

"Chocolate Tube Slime," Stemonitis splendens

                                                                

a bunch of Chocolate Tube Slime on a log

                                    

More on "ozonium" here. Couldn't find much more about it after a cursory online search.

A ball of many spiderlings

Undisturbed

In the woods, looking for mushrooms, I kept seeing these little yellow clumps of something that looked like seed pods or something. It was made up of individual balls about the size of a millet seed, like in birdseed. I actually thought a bird had regurgitated a lump of seed hulls (not knowing if anybody actually does that, besides owls--here's a nice one). Finally I decided to take a closer look at one (almost everything's worth taking a closer look at, I've discovered), and when I reached down to move aside some leaves, the whole thing--well, "exploded" is a good word. Only not very fast, and quietly.

So then I kept finding them, and I would blow a puff of breath on them and watch them do that.

They are a type of orb weaver spider, according
to the crew at bugguide.net.                                             

Slightly disturbed

Fully disturbed

I haven't sat around and watched them pull back together into a ball, which I assume they do, but who knows. What I do know is they are really, really tiny cute little yellow spiderlings.