Cleft Stick.

Not your usual sort of cleft stick - more a sort of cleft trunk. I’m guessing that it was struck by lightening before the fungus became established. It was spotted while dog walking, the low morning sun shining on it from a clear blue sky. An hour later it was hissing down with rain which continued for the rest of the day.

I’m not an expert on fungi, but then neither are most other people; I discovered this when, a few years ago, I went to a talk on biodiversity. A list of SSSIs (sites of special scientific interest) were presented with the number of species counted at each one; while most sites had scores of a few hundred, one scored several thousand. The only thing special about the exception was that the mycologists (people who really do know about fungi) had been let loose on it.

During the evening I went to a talk on focus stacking, that's just what this picture needs but I don't have the resources (yet).