And what's this?

If perhaps, going around in the woods or beaches, you happen to come across the odd thing you see here in the picture, maybe you could ask yourself the same question I have made ??profound the first time I saw him, and that is: "What the hell is this and ?" and then from there a whole series of assumptions, those more or less sensible  like something fell from a vegetable plant (plant but which one?), a strange semi-peeled fruit and thrown there (now the markets are of fruits from the most exotic places and the most unusual shapes), a tennis ball fossilizzated on the peel of a potato (well, not all the assumptions were just sensible, in fact), a fungus grown and incorporated on some strange leaf, up to arrive at the hypothesis science fiction, like the flower of a bouquet alien fell from the ship of a young ET lovers honeymooners on our planet, and so on for at least half an hour, turning over and under the poor hapless object to trying to figure out what it is, until then decide where to leave at the end, trying to do some damage ecological... on the sand, on the ground, on a rock, on a log? At the end put it back, with a flash of genius, where I found him.
That time I was on an island and so, waiting to go home, I had to wait quite a few days of holding my curiosity, partly because the smartphone did not want to find signs of life. But as soon as I again had a connection and a link with civilization, the first thing I did was just try to get on top of my personal mystery... First problem: where to start searching? Which book? Zoology, botany, geology, science fiction? Again came to my rescue or nearly omniscient Google, now a lifeline for many dilemmas and inserting the words - but not so weird then, since in any case between the various hypotheses convince me that there was one more - and then doing a search for pictures... voila, here it is, was he... yes, him and found almost at the first shot, my hunch was right, what luck!
What do you say , what was the answer? The solutions in the next issue... But no joke, I just wanted to create a little suspens... Well, it was just a nice BIG MUSHROOM, only the lower part of the star that I had given the impression of being something of an incorporated outside, was actually part of the same mushroom... but you think that's great! Finally, refining the search, I finally found what species it belonged, and being in doubt between two similar species, appeals the help of experienced friends, and so the identification was complete: Myriostoma coliforme. What a difficult name, you say, much better "MUSHROOM-STAR", although, to tell the truth, in his family, there are quite a lot ' and all more or less similar, then something more precise it was necessary to distinguish it from other (Linnaeus that he was right?) and then go to Myriostoma coliforme.
And now we come to the necessary factual knowledge. This is none other than a fungus basement globose, with wrap brown which then is torn to form the star around (called exoperidium) with typically 8 arms from whose center check the bag sporiferous(called endoperidium) more or less ball, supported by pedicels and perforated by a series of small holes from which the name coliforme ie shaped strainer. It grows on sandy soils, on the edge of the woods in summer and autumn, and in fact I found it practically on the sand, but closer to the water than the forest and this I must say that I was misled to pelagic life forms. It is not edible, and in fact, although very nice, is not that he looked very appetizing, to be honest. The thing that a little made? me angry is that, since I was born, I was practically surrounded by mushrooms, as well as animals, a passion for almost insane thanks to my family, and always flip through books and who knows mushrooms how many times I've seen maybe even signing these funny star... and just when I happen... if one does not have the classic form of the mythical porcine do not even recognize! Shame and dishonor of my family!

an article by Sabrina Mancinelli