The living dead

Autumn can't be far away when the fingers of dead men start to rise from the ground.
They aren't, of course, the fingers of real dead men. They are the fruiting bodies of the fungus Xylaria polymorpha which are known colloquially as dead man's fingers. It is a saprobic fungus, that is to say that it gets its nutrition from dead and decaying organic matter. It is a common inhabitant of forest and woodland and usually grows from the bases of rotting or injured tree stumps and decaying wood.
The fingers are growing from the stump of a large sycamore tree that we had to cut down a couple of years ago as it was far too near to the house. It should keep the fingers fed for many years to come!