The Stars Underfoot

  Several of my friends are avid hikers who often drive to wilderness parks or find nearby areas to do their exploring.  They discover wondrous things along their chosen paths and love to share their finds via photographs.  I find these pictures enthralling as they spike the curiosity and make me ponder if I can find such things here on the Bayou.  Sometimes, it just takes a kick in the right direction.  I know I will never find the snow-filled wonderlands that my cousin, Libby, does on her hikes nor the historic "man-made" finds that my daughter-in-law's Uncle Mark stumbles upon but there is always the outside chance that I can find a few of the same plants or critters in the photographs of an (unmet) friend, David, who lives in Florida.  All three of these folks inspire me to keep searching even though my hikes cover just the area around the Bayou.  

  I have taken to searching more for the "unnoticed" among curiosities along my hiking path.  The tiny spider that lives in a hickory nut shell, the small brown skink that scurries under the leaves, the minuscule bluets that grow beneath the taller grasses all pique the interest.  I want to know more about this often overlooked world of magnificent entities...the tiny tidbits of life that, more oft than not, go unseen, are trampled upon or merely ignored.

  Today's masterpiece of Mother Nature is none other than an earthstar!  Earthstars are mushrooms that closely resemble the familiar puffballs only they go one step (literally) further in releasing their spores.  An earthstar uses the same method of a puffball that "poofs" spores out of a tiny hole in the top of the ball.  The only difference is, the earthstar has an outer covering that protects the spores when it is not time to release them.  Usually, the spores are pounded out of the ball by raindrops.  The spores need the moisture to grow so earthstars are adamant about not letting them "poof" before the time is right.  The outer covering of an earthstar stays tightly closed around the ball until it "feels" the rain coming.  Then, it splits open and folds backwards revealing the inner spore ball.  This flattening of the outer cover is how the earthstar gets its name.  When it splits, the outer covering is somewhat star-shaped.  That extra "step" is that the earthstar can and does fold back up over the ball if the rains quit before the spores are all released. This action protects the spores from drying out too much.  As soon as another rainstorm threatens the area, the earthstar springs into action and folds the "star" back open to let the raindrops do their work.

  I was tickled to find the earthstar this morning.  This one was just the outer covering as the hard rains of last night obviously emptied the spore ball and the high winds ripped the ball from the covering.  My little earthstar had completed its life cycle and left its spores to renew the next generation.  It is tiny things like this that make life interesting.  Just think of how many wonders of the world are stepped on, walked over or ignored on a daily basis.