Country diary: A gothic masterpiece reaching out of the ground | Jan Miller

Halkyn Mountain, Flintshire, north Wales: This area of ancient, undisturbed land is rich with fungi. Star of the show is the Cordyceps, scourge of nearby ghost mothsAlthough this autumn has been very mild, the air is still scented by the rotting breakdown of the previous season's abundant growth. That means mushrooms, those marvellous and mysterious things. The US poet Marvin Bell wrote: "Each mushroom was a button, each a flowering, some glow in the dark ? The dead man has seen them take the shapes of cups and saucers, of sponges, logs and bird nests."Up on Halkyn Mountain, we find bird's nest fungi (Crucibulum laeve) in a churchyard so old the church isn't even there any more. The curious growths on dead twigs are in fact round, leathery cups, each containing four or more cream, lentil-like "eggs" - containers of spores that are ejected when hit by a single raindrop. Continue reading...