Country diary: A frightful fungus worthy of an Edgar Allan Poe tale

Blaid’s Wood, Durham: Fungi season has brought me out in search of two otherworldly species

I have come on an annual pilgrimage, this autumn afternoon, along a muddy track under a tunnel of trees, in search of two toadstools that fire the imagination. One is almost extraterrestrial in appearance, the other a Halloween horror story from the underworld.

Until two years ago, in a lifetime of looking, I had never seen an earthstar. But then a naturalist told me about a colony of these most charismatic toadstools, rare in our region, growing on a bank beside this path. And here they are again today, collared earthstars, Geastrum triplex, half hidden among ivy, looking like invaders from another planet.