Help me research this tomato mold.

December 30, 2007 6:59 PM

Identifyfilter: What kind of mold is this on the tomato? What else can you tell me about that kind of mold? I'm curious partly because it's so pretty and also because I'd like to put the picture on Wikipedia as an example of...whatever it is.
posted by dreamyshade to Science & Nature (8 answers total)

Looks like a Fusarium, which do infect tomatoes, but honestly, unless you can put it under a microscope so we can look at the fruiting bodies, it'll be very hard to ID. Do you have access to a microscope, by any chance?
posted by emyd at 7:04 PM on December 30, 2007

(oh, or some type of Mucor, a common soil fungus. Nice picture, by the way!)
posted by emyd at 7:07 PM on December 30, 2007

Damn, that picture belongs on the mustache metafilter post from yesterday...

I have never seen that on a tomato, I get the big black spots of mold, but maybe that is the same thing only at the spore stage?
posted by 45moore45 at 7:43 PM on December 30, 2007

Similar to Mucor, it could also be Rhizopus.
posted by TedW at 5:40 AM on December 31, 2007

I think TedW is probably right, Rhizopus black bread mold - see a picture on this page, midway down. But I also agree with emyd, fuzzy white fungus with black fruiting bodies is not very specific, and I wouldn't absolutely trust anyone but a mycologist with a

Those black bits are fruiting bodies, incidentally, there to blast spores all over your home. You can't escape mold spores entirely, of course, but having that sort of extravaganza going on... I see from your comments that it was hidden in the bowl, but letting a mold get that far in your kitchen - ick.
posted by nanojath at 11:01 AM on December 31, 2007

(mycologist with a microscope, that is, nanojath is duh)
posted by nanojath at 11:02 AM on December 31, 2007

...letting a mold get that far in your kitchen - ick.

Now come on; as a mycologist surely you know that without molds and their kin we wouldn't have truffles, bread, beer/wine/spirits, and roquefort, among other delicacies, not to mention all those beta-lactams and other useful chemicals.
--just another fun guy
posted by TedW at 1:41 PM on December 31, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks, guys! Those are some good leads for me to investigate and learn about.

Nanojath, yeah, I was pretty grossed-out too. Fascinated, but still. I haven't seen anything like it since.
posted by dreamyshade at 2:46 PM on December 31, 2007