Posted in West Virginia Nature March 03, 2021 by

On Your Next Forest Hike, Keep An Eye Out For Dead Man’s Fingers, A Spooky Fungus That Grows In West Virginia

Have you ever been out wandering through the beautiful West Virginia woods when suddenly, to your horror, you spotted what you thought might be a dead body? Here’s hoping for your sake and the dead body’s that it was just a mushroom called Dead Man’s Fingers, which can look eerily like its spooky namesake.

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What are those long, slender spikes poking up out of the loamy forest floor? Could it be...a dead man's fingers, reaching for the sky in one last desperate attempt to thwart the grim reaper? Probably not. It's probably just Dead Man's Fingers, a unique fungus that grows in woods around the world, including West Virginia's.
Melissa McMasters/Flickr
Of course, sometimes these mushrooms look more like dead man's fingers...
Árpád László/500px Plus Collection via Getty Images
and sometimes they look less like dead man's fingers.
Holger Krisp/Wikimedia
Either way, though, they're fascinatingly creepy. A species of the genus "Xylaria," Dead Man's Fingers are a saprobic fungus that work to break down organic matter, usually dead stumps, logs, or leaves.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park/Flickr
The fungus is often black or dark brown, but can also be varying shades of whitish blue or green. In the springtime, it can be covered with a layer of white or blue spores.
AJC1/Flickr
Dead Man's Fingers are not good to eat and they'll kill any live trees they manage to grow on (usually apples and elms) by causing black root rot, so other than their interesting name, there's not much reason to encourage them to grow in your yard. But they're still fun to spot in the forest.
Nikk/Flickr

Have you ever stumbled across any Dead Man’s Fingers, of the fungal variety? Did they look more like their namesake or less? And these Dead Man’s fingers aren’t the only fascinating fungal phenomenon found in West Virginia’s woods: if you’re ever out after dark, keep your eyes open for glow in the dark mushrooms as well.

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