What is it?

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In spite of T.S. Eliot’s admonition, I will ask “What is it?” On January 18th I noticed this little thing, maybe an inch across, on a local Ashe juniper tree (Juniperus ashei) and I don’t know what it is. Could it be something as mundane as a narrow strip of fabric that the preceding rain turned into a sodden clump (though it didn’t seem to have the texture of anything woven)? Might it be a fungus? Do any of you have other suggestions?

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman