It's the little things...

As anyone who is interested in mycology probably has, I have a mental list of mushrooms I'd really love to find and identify. Near the top is an earthstar. I had a basically given up on mushroom hunting for the year because of the weather, it's been pretty frosty lately. But a few days ago Kevin and I were at one of the local parks taking outfit photos when I spotted these beauties in a patch of mulch.

I thought they were just puffballs but upon further investigation I realized the were earthstars!! These are Astraeus hygrometricus, more commonly known as the false earthstar, or the hygroscopic earthstar.

They start off looking like puffballs but as they mature the outer layer breaks open into a star shape. The rays open and close depending on the amount of humidity in the air - opening when its wet and closing when the air is dry. It had just rained earlier in the day when we found these but you can see in the above photo the one beside the open one is closed.

Sorry for the mushroom talk, well not really...I'm totally stoked. I couldn't be happier about crossing a mushroom off my to find list! It's the little things that count!
Hope you're having a fabulous day!
xoxo