Today while raking leaves and dumping them into a low spot in the forest, I came upon a couple of these amazing fungi. They live in the leaf litter and humus of hardwoods. To my eye the 8-pointed star (collar) is an engineering marvel. The fruiting body of the fungus opens in late summer or autumn.
Spores shoot out from a central hole if hit by a raindrop. I can scarcely imagine a more ingenious scheme to enable the species to live on in the forest.
To life!