A soft coat for old wood

An old stump in Victoria, where it's warm and wet most of the winter, sports a full crop of turkey tail fungus.

One side of the stump. It's like that all the way around.

These are young turkey tails, still clean and pale coloured, still quite small. I don't know what kind of tree this was; a backyard shade tree, on the small side, cut to knee height.

One of the new stems of the shrub next to it had pierced a turkey tail. Or otherwise, the tail had captured the stem.

The mushroom looks fragile, but I couldn't pull the stem out of its grasp. To separate these two new friends, stump and shrub, now will take a knife.

The surface of the fungus feels velvety. Zooming in closer, I can see why:

Fuzzy

Zooming closer:

A warm winter coat for a dying leaf.