I’ve hiked around the state of Wisconsin in all seasons, but I only encountered this thing hanging from a tree branch once. I got home and looked it up on the ‘net and found out that it is a wild cucumber pod, dehydrated in the winter air, clinging like a parasite from the branch of a host tree. It is a “foreign body” to the tree, and it certainly looked foreign to me…like it might have been dropped to Earth from another planet.
scillagrace 
Well spotted… 🙂
Spotted, prickly and curly all at once!
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Yes I particularly like the curly!
Me, too! 🙂
Very sci-fi!
I know…Pod People were on my mind!
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🙂