Beautiful, mysterious and misunderstood, mushrooms are finally having a moment | Lucy Jones

Fungi provide awe in abundance so get out there and forage in the mulch, while there's still time

Mushrooms are having a moment. Cultural depictions of fungi are proliferating: from Seana Gavin's psychedelic mushroom collages shown at Somerset House last year; to the bestselling book Entangled Life, by the mycologist Merlin Sheldrake; we're seeing there is more to the fungus than meets the eye. Trials into the therapeutic potential of psilocybin - derived from magic" mushrooms - are even returning to modern medicine.

And after one of the wettest summers in memory, local mushrooms are flourishing as well. Fungi-spotting reports from the public to the Royal Horticultural Society are up 76% compared with 2020, because of a bumper year.

Lucy Jones is a journalist and the author of Losing Eden and The Nature Seed.