Jessica Allen crunched through fallen leaves among Manzanita trees hunting for something few have spotted before: the Manzanita butter clump – a rare and little-known yellow mushroom found, so far, only along North America's Western coastlines.
It was last seen here in Napa County in California, the United States two years ago, and Allen, a fungi scientist, was keen to find it. But within minutes, something caught her attention. She knelt, pulled a hand lens to her eye, and peered nose-close into a rock: lichens – a type of fungi – bursting with dazzling shapes, textures and colours.
