Physarum · Track 7 · middle

Ode to Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa

'White coral slime.' Delicate white frond clusters on rotting wood, each tiny frond tipped with a single spore on its own minute stalk — unlike every other myxomycete, which carries spores inside enclosed sporangia. A taxonomic outlier. Looks like something from a deep ocean reef deposited on a forest floor. An ode to the exception that rewrites the rule — the organism that bears its spores naked to the world and has done so for millions of years. | NEUROSCIENCE LENS: Evolutionary outlier — Ceratiomyxa bears spores externally, naked, while every other myxomycete encloses them. In neural terms: an exception to the coding scheme that forces re-examination of why the scheme exists. What does enclosure protect that exposure doesn't need protected?

Lyrics

[Intro]
An overcast morning in October.
The air smells of wet cedar, cool and sharp.

[Verse 1]
There you are.
On the dark, decaying wood.
A reef from a colder ocean.
White coral, blooming in the moss.
Ceratiomyxa. Fruticulosa.
Each tiny frond a pillar.
Cool and brittle under my fingertip.
And on each pillar, a single spore.
Held up to the grey light.

[Chorus]
But you bear them naked to the world.
No wall. No shell. No enclosing skin.
Every other one I know builds a house.
A fortress for what comes next.
What do they protect, that you have never needed?
What is the fear that you don't understand?

[Verse 2]
Thomas Macbride wrote you down in his book.
North American Slime-Moulds, 1899.
He gave the question a Latin name.
But someone found you first.
On a morning just like this one.
And left no name in the record.
Just the specimen.
The exception, pressed between paper.

[Chorus]
You bear them naked to the world.
No wall. No shell. No enclosing skin.
Every other one I know builds a house.
A fortress for what comes next.
What do they protect, that you have never needed?
What is the fear that you don't understand?

[Bridge]
Is it a different kind of strength?
To be the rule that rewrites the book.
To stand exposed.
To have no lock, because you never built a door.
To trust the air completely.
To be the one thing that proves the rule was only ever a suggestion.

[Outro]
I'm still here.
Watching you on the log.
The smell of lignin and faint ammonia.
The question doesn't need an answer.
It just needs to be asked.
Naked to the world.