Behold the Amazing Earthstar Mushroom!

A few days ago I was down by our seasonal pond and I almost stepped on this thing! I couldn't understand what I was looking at until I studied it closely. It's an EARTHSTAR MUSHROOM (Astraeus hygrometricus)!! ((HUGE thanks to John Plischke (fungi020 www.flickr.com/photos/39275226@N00 ) for identification of this truly amazing fungus!) There were about five others next to it about the same size. After John told me what this was, I did some reading and found lots of information!

These mushrooms begin their lives as huge round PUFFBALLS and split into these rays that you see, but in the center is a smaller ball which is slowly exposed as the rays split, and finally it becomes the top, shown here! Isn't that just AMAZING????!!!!

Would you like to see this mushroom open up?!!! I found three time-lapse videos on YouTube so you can see the puffball open and the rays splitting apart! EXTREMELY COOL to see!!!
Earth Stars--The Private Life of Plants
Earthstar fungi rising time lapse
Geastrum saccatum earthstar puffball

If you would like to read more about these, there is a wiki page here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astraeus_hygrometricus
I found another page here: www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species/Astraeus_hygrometricus.html