Waiting For The Stars To Arrive

    In the short while I've been learning about fungi there is one that is my favourite and that is the Earth Star (Geastrum triplex). Last year I kept seeing people posting pictures of these beautiful wonders of the fungi kingdom hoping I too would find one. Then in late autumn while on a visit to Shouldham Warren I spotted my first example, a collared earth star that was well passed it's best but was still an exciting moment for me.


   As the weeks followed and more visits were made I started to find more, some wonderful younger examples and more older stars.


    Earth stars start off as a bulb-like ball, the outer skin then splits and folds back to form a star shape leaving the spore sac sitting in the center. This spore sac acts like the puffball, as rain drops or leaf litter fall onto it the sac will puff out spores.


    These lovely fungi are mainly found in leaf litter in deciduous woodland tho I often find nice examples in mossy grassed areas on the edge of woodland.



   On my last visit to the warren at Shouldham I took a look at one of my favourite star areas and found a number of bulbs, so I should be seeing the first earth stars of the season in the next week or so. It will be great to see these magical fungi once more even if they ate a sign of summer being over.


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