A strange species

I saw these strange things on a log in Upper Reelig Wood today and thought they looked interesting. I'd never seen anything like them before, but assumed it was a type of fungus.

When I looked up what they were I discovered it's something commonly called 'Wolf's Milk,' which is actually a myxogastrid amoeba (?!), but commonly mistaken for a fungus. Here's a link to the Wikipedia info on it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycogala_epidendrum
It mentions that it can occur on damp rotten wood, especially on large logs, from June to November. So that makes sense.

Apparently what we see here are it's fruiting bodies, but I must say I'm more than a little confused still about what this stuff actually is. Is it a plant? Is it a slime? Is it some other type of organism? Clearly my knowledge of biology is very poor! Anyway, I think it's interesting to look at, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it pretty....more just weird, I'd say. I wonder if anyone knows a bit more about it and can enlighten me?