decorating with nature

I have always loved decorating with nature... from an urn filled with forestwood, to antique herbariums, to driftwood, to animal horns, to shells and rocks picked up on our travels. Since moving to New Hampshire I have become especially enamoured with tree fungi... what is called bracket or shelf fungus! Dan grew up in the Pacific NW, and grew up calling these little lovelies "conks" which is indeed what the bracket-shaped fungus is called, so that is what we call them! They are rock-hard and have no smell.

Before I change out the living room mantle to a more summer-look, I wanted to share the mantle as it looks today. I purchased the large conk at an antique shop, but most of them we have "found"!

The humble conk collection shares the mantle with a pair of antique Chinese blue and white temple jars, a pair of antique mercury glass candlesticks, and an antique English hallmarked sterling-rimmed matchstrike

The small white conk on the right corner was actually a gift from our nice painter, who found it while hiking and remembered my collection!

I thought you might like to see them as they grow in nature- this is how we generally see them.

Here you can see two conks growing on this one tree. This is in the forest by our house.

(I'm keeping my eye on these two!!)

This is a dead tree with many small conks of the Ganoderma variety.

A large conk at the entrance to a summer home on our road.

a close-up

the underside

Hope you find them as lovely as I do!