Listverse is a good source for these articles and many more like them. Maybe I like them because it's close to Halloween...I don't know. I hope you find them interesting.
Dead Man’s Fingers
Many fungi live unseen beneath the soil for most of the year. The only time you see them is when they poke up their spore-producing structures. Mushrooms are just the way that fungi spread their descendants. Not all fungi produce mushrooms, however.
Xylaria polymorpha, commonly known as dead man’s fingers, sends up branches of gnarled-looking black structures. Their common name is apt because they look as if they could well be the fingers of some dead man trying to scratch his way out of the earth. The black surface is the spore-producing part of the fungus, which lives on the decaying matter of plants beneath the surface.
Mother Nature has some really creepy critters growing. Fun to hunt for them, but best to do it in the light of day, ya know?
Coffee out on the patio this morning.
