EXCLUSIVE: Richard Dennis, a former head of mycology at Kew in London, described a collection of spheres as a species of fungus in 1962 - despite knowing the true identity.
They discovered a fungus that looks like a gnome which is virtually new to science. A kind of ‘earthstar’ called, formally, Geastrum Brittanicum, was first found in Norfolk at the end of the last century. Kew Gardens identified it as a new species, as recently as 2015. Now it has raised its bobble head for the first time ever in Gloucestershire, just over from the Herefordshire border; and it was keen naturalist and conservation advisor, Danny Newman, who found it growing on a verge close to St Edward’s Church in Kempley. Mrs Newman said: “It is a spectacular fungus. “They say it looks like a little man, and the spores come out of the top of its head.