The remains of one of the plants from last year.
Abbot’s Bromley Horn and Horse Head
One of the sets of antlers and the hobby horse head as used in the annual Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance, held on the Monday which falls between September 6th and September 12th (inclusive).
The antlers have been carbon dated as originating in the eleventh century; the hobby horse is a modern copy of a medieval original.
The antlers and horse can be seen in the village church when not in use.
Squat mushroom
Parkdale, pre-dawn
Mistletoe, Coventry city centre
Woodland clearing, Sutton Park
Sulfur tuft mushrooms on a lawn
Horse’s hoof fungus
A bracket fungus, a parasite and killer of many types of tree, it is shaped a little bit like the hoof of a horse. It is also called the Tinder fungus because it burns easily, and can be used to start a fire from a spark. Ötzi the Iceman, whose five thousand year old remains were found in an Alpine glacier some years ago, was carrying four chunks of this fungus.
These specimens were growing on the trunk of a tree beside the Smestow Valley LNR railway walk, near the Alpine Way access point. The unnatural brightness of the greens of the moss and ivy leaves in the lower pictures is because I needed to use the on-camera flash to get enough light for the photos.