A gardener was left baffled after they found a mysterious black substance growing on a strawberry plant in their yard.
The mystified resident who lives in Eltham in Melbourne's north-east found the strange blobs growing from underneath the plant.
Curious about the bizarre discovery the gardener took to Reddit on Wednesday and uploaded pictures of the caviar-like substance.
A gardener noticed a group of strange black blobs (pictured) growing on a strawberry plant in their backyard
'Showed up overnight on my strawberries - Seemingly eggs?,' the gardener wrote. 'Can anyone help identify.' The pictures showed the black spores growing along the base of the plant and up the plant's stalks.
The small, round growths appeared to sprout from the ground and be taking over the plant. The resident said days of rain and humid weather may have caused the small black blobs.'The gardens were recently mulched with Pea Straw bought from Bunnings,'Several users who commented on the gardener's post tried to guess what the
slimy liquid Preis substance could be and saw the funnier side of the resident's dilemma.
'Forbidden blackberries,' one user wrote. 'Mulberries? I actually thought they were at first,' another said. 'Forbidden caviar.'Others were closer to the mark. 'Is this slime mould?' The suspicious blobs are in fact a type of slime mould, a species similar to fungi The suspicious blobs are in fact a type of slime mould, a species similar to fungi. Dr Kylie Agnew-Francis, a mycologist and medical chemist at the University of Queensland said the species is often found in Melbourne.
'It [looks] to me like lindbladia tubulina,' Dr Agnew-Francis told Yahoo. 'There are some sightings of this species down that way...' Slime moulds are an organism formed by a single cell that is considered neither a plant, animal or fungi.
There are over a thousand species of slime mould around the world and they eat bacteria, fungi, and other forms of nutrients in order to grow.
Slime moulds are not believed to be harmful to humans however it is not yet known whether they are toxic.
'If it isn't covering all of the leaves then I doubt there will be any long-term harm. They come and go very quickly,' Dr Agnew-Francis said.
The species do grow in large groups across various parts of Australia. MelbourneReddit