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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
What am I?
Out for a walk in the countryside today, I came across something I'd never seen before. If you don't know what it is, can you guess?
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Wow – sure looked like leaves at first. Mushrooms of some sort?
I was going to say the same thing as Marcina… looks like a field of mushrooms.
Dried up shiitake mushrooms or squirrel ravaged pine cones.
Fortune cookies, broken in quarters.
It looks like the remainders of a fir cone (or similar) that a squirrel left.
I’m guessing either dried up pods or that someone decided to shave a tree 😛
I believe, from what I can make out, that Alexander and Ron are probably correct. Otherwise, my guess would be Ginkgo tree pods? I can’t really see clearly.
I’d suggest cone-scales of a fir (Abies, not a pine (Pinus).
Abies cones break up naturally on the tree, to release the seeds, and leaving the spike-like axis on the branch. Cones of pine and most other conifers fall off intact (the scales opening and closing with changes in humidity to allow the seeds to fall out) – or are wrecked by squirrels or birds, each in its own characteristic way.
Peter, in Wales
Yay, Peter! I knew we could count on you. Hope Jeff gives us a closer look up into the tree, or of some intact cones.
Grandma Friedl, Ohio USA
I too am going to go with fir cone. I grew up in Washington State and these look very much like Douglas Fir(Pacific Silver Fir) cones after they’ve been consumed by an animal.