This iswhat I found! After a while I will explain exactly what it is. Of course, on this board, a botanist will probably give is genus and species within a day.
Anyway, it’s real purty. The AAA battery at the top of the image will give you a good idea of scale. It’s laying on my mouse pad.
[center Tris[/center]
A pinecone?
hrumphh… where did you find it?
Howzabout a Camellia japonica from your dear aunt’s wedding that has been wrapped in the handout since '47?
A barite rose?
At a church, in my home town.
Tris
Opened pinecone. That’s my guess.
I’m in the camellia camp. Did you find it near a bush with dark, shiny leaves? The flowers on mine dry up and drop off the bush like that. However, they’re so fragile that by this time of year, the squirrels and birds have trashed them all during their foraging.
I’m going with a woodrose seed pod since that’s how you’ve labeled your picture.
Good thought. But, I am a photographer, not a botanist. It’s not a woodrose, it’s just a thing that looks like a rose made of wood.
It’s pretty fragile, but it has been lying around the ground with lots of others like it for months. Stepping on them pretty much breaks them, but they don’t just fall apart on their own. (Well, I suppose they must, since some are pretty far gone
I’m gonna give the non night owls, and the folks in the next few time zones a while before I give the answer. (I know the exact species, since the church folks are quite happy with it, and have collected the things for years.)
Tris
A pine cone, on the ugliest mouse pad I’ve ever seen.
Yes, it’s very pretty.
But I’m just posting to say that you’d better be coming back to tell us what it is. It drives me crazy when people start a thread and leave it dangling, so I look forward to you enlightening us soon.
Looks to be fungi of some sort.
I have no idea.
OK, sheesh. 
The church is quite proud of it’s large trees, dating back to the Civil War, and earlier. This little flower is actually the base of a cone from a Cedar of Lebanon. The tree is the largest of its kind in the entire Commonwealth of Virginia, and one of the largest in the entire United States. Every other year, its cones ripen, and loose their seeds, leaving behind these little wood roses.
Tris
They are pretty enough to use as a decoration just for themselves, I think.
When I was waiting for the picture to load and it was still supersized it looked like an artfully arranged stack of turkey. 
Now that the Alien hatched out, who will you sacrifice so the Face-Hugger has a host body to grow in?
I forgot about a trimmed and cooked artichoke in my fridge once. Looked just like that. :pukey:
Hmmm, my thoughts were “A pine cone, on a really beautiful mouse pad.”
If you take one of those cones and knock most of the scales off a central spindle with a woody base will be exposed. This makes an excellent spinning top (a packet knife is good for tapering the point.
