The Cycle Of Life

Here's a photo of a fungus I spotted growing on a tree trunk today.

The tree is a live oak and though dead, it's still standing. The fungus is known as a bracket fungus, shelf fungus, or conk. It's brightly colored and zig-zags along the trunk. It's part of the recycling process, returning the nutrients and materials which the oak extracted from the ground during it's life, making them available for new life.

Also on my hike today, I saw a small live oak grove which I thought would make a nice black and white image. The trees are all fairly young, judging by their four inch trunk diameters. They're at the edge of a small meadow.