100 Species #54: Dead man's fingers

[urbpan]

This dead man's fingers fungus (Xylaria polymorpha) emerged from the well around a basement window. This revealed to us the presence of an old stump. Strange place for a tree to grow.

Dead man's fingers is a wood-digesting fungus that is variable in appearance (thus the scientific name). The fruiting bodies are always thick and more or less finger-like, sometimes fused into a hand-like group, sometimes separate and more elongated. This time of year the mushroom is coated with blue-green asexual spores (conidia). They persist through the summer into fall, developing sexually produced spores as well.

Dead man's fingers appeared in this blog previously as 365 urban species #181.