Xylaria oxyacanthae

OK - this has got to be one of the weirder of the weird things I've come across. It's a fungus that only grows on the fallen seeds of hawthorn and hickory trees. I went back to this site and checked and indeed it is right below a hawthorn. The seeds get infected with the spores before they fall, but the fruiting bodies don't appear until the they've fallen and begun to decompose.

To tell the truth I don't even know what made me notice this… it doesn't look like much or stand out. It looks like little roots or twigs until you get your nose right down on it, but something did make me look closer.