When autumn returns to the forest you will find most foliage turning brown, oak leaves will turn copper,  and quaking aspens turn glistening gold. Every year you will find the same beautiful colors as the trees shed their leaves and the world of fungi begins to emerge. Year after year the cycle repeats and the forest lives on. I was looking out my kitchen window at the old tree next door when I noticed some wood-like fungus growing out of it. But I found myself completely ignoring all the beautiful familiar fall leaves and studying the intricacies of some strange new fungus attached to a decaying tree trunk. I was…