What is it Wednesday archive: October 31, 2018

 Can you identify what's in this photo?

 

 

Each Wednesday morning 

on Camp Lutherlyn's Facebook page

 the Lutherlyn Environmental Education Program posts a photo. 

 

 

Readers have all morning and afternoon 

to make their best guess about what the photo is. 

 

Around 6 pm LEEP provides the answer and a brief explanation.

 

 

Each week's What is it Wednesday post 

will also be posted on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog, 

 after it is posted on Facebook,

sometimes with additional bonus information. 

 

In addition to bringing you current editions of What is it Wednesday 

on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog, 

we will be reposting old editions,

creating a What is it Wednesday archive. 

 

This photo was posted as a What is it Wednesday on

October 31, 2018. 

 

 

 

And the answer is....

 

 This eerie looking fungus has a spooky name: dead man’s fingers. 

Here it is growing out of a dead log, but it is sometimes found poking up out of soil or leaf litter, perhaps giving the appearance of fingers reaching out of a grave. Spooky! 

There is something dead here, but it’s not fingers. Dead man’s fingers, like most other fungus, lives by consuming the decaying matter of dead wood, which helps the dead sticks, logs, trees and roots in our forests turn into soil to nurture the next generation of plants. 

There are many cases in nature of something looking “scary” to us, and maybe even leading to a superstition, when it is just doing its job. Learning about these things can help us see what we encounter in nature as less scary and more interesting. 

For more on how LEEP can help you can transform the scary into the fascinating through knowledge, check out www.Lutherlyn.com/ee. 

Like and follow Camp Lutherlyn on Facebook, to see What is it Wednesday posts when they come out and have the opportunity to share your guesses in the comments!