We've seen the white pipes before but not the seed pods. They are supposed to be fairly rare but we saw a bunch of them on our hike. They look like they are fungus but when we read about them we learned that there are plants in families including rhododendrons, heather, blueberries, azaleas, cranberries, etc! Who would have known?
We have these all over the place on my mother's wooded property in Killingworth, CT and they are not that unusual here in Southern CT. This is a very nice shot of them, though, with both phases of growth represented.
How absolutely weird! As you said - they looked for all the world like a weird fungi The contrast between the pods and the fronds is also very weird! It's a great find and image.
