Story By: Conor Sheils, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash

This image shows the mysterious rose shape spotted by an eagle-eyed netizen in the trunk of a chopped-down tree.

The image was posted by a Japanese Twitter user after their colleague chopped down the tree.

They posted the images online with a post which generated a flurry of shocked reactions from social media users online.

One netizen posted: “Amazing. It’s like a miracle.”

Meanwhile another added: “I know this…it’s the mark showing the entrance to the fairy realm, which appears only once every 300 years in the forest on the night of the full moon.”

However, other netizens were quick to pour cold water on any theory involving fairies or magic.

Instead they claim that the apparent petals are nothing more than fungus colonies living on the rings of the tree.

The lines mark the borders between competing fungi living inside the tree.

One netizen wrote: “What we’re seeing in the cross section of the tree aren’t the petals of a flower, but actually fungus colonies.

“Basically, there were a bunch of mushrooms growing inside the tree, devouring it from the inside, and the lines are simply the borders between the fighting fungi factions competing for territory.”

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