dead man's fingers

noun

• 1a European colonial soft coral which has spongy lobes stiffened by calcareous spines, said to resemble the fingers of a corpse.

  • Alcyonium digitatum, order Alcyonacea

• 2a fungus that produces clumps of dull black, irregular, finger-like fruiting bodies at the bases of dead tree stumps in Eurasia and North America.

  • Xylaria polymorpha, family Xylariaceae, subdivision Ascomycotina

• 3 informal the finger-like divisions of a lobster’s or crab’s gills.