“Dead man’s toe! Dead man’s toe! Dead! Dead! Dead!” — Sarah Sanderson How about a finger? Ooooh, fresh one! “Wiggle thy toes, open thine eyes, twist thy fingers toward the sky.” Meet Xylaria polymorpha, better known as dead man’s fingers. Its finger-shaped growths, called stromata, emerge from the soil. Which is unsettling, but at least something is making an effort to reach out. Sounds like a real fungi! Billy? Is that you? Despite looking like the fingers of a reanimated corpse, this fungus is perfectly natural. It typically grows from the bases of dead or injured trees and on decaying wood, quietly getting on with the business of decomposition. So, if you spot a cluster of spooky fingers rising out of the ground in the woods, don’t panic. At least not yet. It’s not necessarily a sign that someone has been resurrected, or that a trio of witchy sisters are on the prowl. It’s just fungi doing what fungi do best: making the forest a little more unsettling than it needs to be. Boo...