Dead man’s fingers on a tree stump

Dead mans fingers on a tree stump

I pass this tree stump in a front garden on most days, sometimes more than once in the day.  Usually, I don’t pay it any attention. But recently I glanced at it and noticed something.

As the pictures show, it’s been there as a stump for some time, and has accumulated a covering of mosses and lichens. But what drew my attention were the distinctive fungi growing on it. They are dead man’s fingers. The fruiting bodies probably grew a month or two back during the autumn fungi flush, but they were still here in December.