BorderReiver
Moderator
Never seen one of these before. FB supplied the picture. Xylaria polymorpha.
Dead man's fingers.
- Thread starter BorderReiver
- Start date
Saint-Just
Administrator
Spectacular
Jaggededge
Explorer
Was that taken in Ohio?
ElThomsono
VIP Member
Like something from The X-Files :oops:
Nice65
Explorer
MaC
Moderator
So that’s what happened to her @MaC.
It does look gruesome, doesn't it ?
It looks mummified going to fungal rot. Maybe recently gangrenous ?
Unless mummified you'd never see digits 'entire' like that. The body disarticulates fairly easily in our topsoil.....and that's very damp topsoil.
It's a cracking photograph though
More usually it's like wee short stick things that look like burnt bits sticking up from the moss.
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/fungi-and-lichens/dead-mans-fingers/
Saint-Just
Administrator
Nice65
Explorer
Looking at the moss, I think it’s probably a tiny thing.
What did happen to Xylaria off BCUK Mary? Didn’t she go off in a van with her bloke on adventures. I know that Simply Midge stuff is missed by many. I still have a tin of it.
MaC
Moderator
The stuff I've seen was under 2" high. I think the description says 3 to 8cm. It's still spooky when you get one like the image Mike put up though
Fi did take off with Woodstock and they roamed around a fair bit. Worked their way up the country, worked on Skye, iirc, and then they got a new van, and last I heard they were intending to head to Portugal, and just disappeared off the radar.
The Stupid Simple stuff was very sound. Totally unpretentious, but very good. I thought they'd intended to keep up the sales as a kind of background income, but it doesn't seem to have happened.
I liked them both, it'd be good to hear how they're getting on.
They were active on social media for a while I was told, but I'm not so I didn't catch any updates.
M
Nice65
Explorer
I’m not sure you’d want to be brewing that stuff up in a van and trying to pot it TBH, it doesn’t sound viable.
MaC
Moderator
It's very do-able in a kitchen. It's very do-able on a small stove set up too. I think it might be a bit concentrated to do it in an enclosed van space though.
M
M
Saint-Just
Administrator
Mind, if you survive the preparing, the van should be midge-free for a while :p