#xylaria polymorpha

So, Gentle Readers, I was at trimming a holly bush that had grown far too big for its britches in the wake of all this rain of late, and my heart stopped when I uncovered this.

It took...awhile...to cut back the bush’s overgrowth to see it this clearly and photograph it. In the meantime, as it was there in the shaded dark moistness of the bush, I had plenty of time to move from terrorized to resigned. Was I about to have to call the authorities and be subjected to cadaver dogs invading my side yard? Was it just some old surgical glove one of the Nellets had filled with water or dirt, tied off, and thrown it into the overgrown flower bed? What? What? What? my mind kept asking, not liking the answer that seemed to be rising from the grave right before me.

Screwing my courage to the sticking place, I put my faith in Google, and found the answer: Dead Man’s Fingers fungus. Manipulating the branch confirmed six “fingers”, not simply five. And while the pictures Google has are not so unsettlingly grasping at a branch, clearly from a shallow grave, it’s the same stuff.

This is Xylaria polymorpha, commonly known as dead man's fingers. It is a saprobic fungus. source