Boogers Alive!

Day 187: The Boogers are back! A couple of years back, I posted a similar picture, referring to it as the "Booger Tree." I was terribly dismayed when I checked on it last year and found that the bark hosting the growth had peeled off, leaving bare, boogerless wood. Even though I thought it was gone for good, I've kept checking on the tree every time I've walked over to the Longmire Community Building and today, I was rewarded with a new and luxuriant crop of Boogers. I am glad to see that apparently the mycelium was more than "skin deep," and survived by being rooted in the rotting wood underneath the shed bark. To the best of my limited skills in mycology, I have tentatively identified this fungus as Exidia candida; it turns dark brown with age and the individual fruits collapse in on itselves as they dry out. Fresh, they look for all the world like the Jolly Green Giant hawked a nose-oyster on the tree as he passed.