What is this thing? If I squint my eyes a little, it looks like a weathered sandstone formation on the side of a steep mountain, with beautiful colors and textures.
When reality intervenes, I have to acknowledge that this is only a tree with some kind of growth on its side. I suspect that it’s a mushroom or some other kind of fungus, but I am not sure. Maybe it’s the tree version of a tumor.
Mostly, though, I don’t worry about answering my initial question—it’s not that important for me to identify what this is. I can enjoy its beauty in an abstract way by focusing on its shape and color and texture, by looking at the highlights and the shadows.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
It’s a tinder or hoof polypore (Fomes fomentarius,) which is a type of bracket fungus. It has been used as tinder to start fires for thousands of years.
Wow. Thanks for identifying it for me. I definitely thought it was cool-looking, but didn’t have a clue about what it was.
nice to know what it is, and to me it also looks like a sandstone formation, like the road in Alberta that leads down into Drumheller with the badlands all around.
Some bracket fungi get big enough that you can knock them off the tree and carve on them. Crazy folk art. Here’s a link if you want to see some of this art: http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/16087071
That is strange and interesting. Who knew?
It doesn’t know what it is either, and seems content anyway.
I just took pictures of these yesterday. You’ll see some on my blog soon. amazing. We much be connected somehow. 🙂
Wow. It really is amazing that we both would see them and choose to photograph them. I have been inspired by one of my fellow bloggers to pay more attention to mushrooms, lichen, and such when I am in the woods. I am pretty sure that I would not have paid any attention to this a few months ago.
I have some of those too. 🙂