Have you ever noticed something unusual in a garden and felt completely puzzled by it? That happened to us one quiet afternoon while visiting a friend’s home. We were walking through the backyard, admiring the flowers and listening to insects hum, when something strange caught our attention. Between two flowerbeds sat a cluster of tiny, round shapes resting in the damp soil.
They looked like miniature bowls carefully arranged in the ground, almost as if they belonged to a tiny creature. We crouched down to examine them more closely. Each small cup held several bead-like spheres inside. We tossed around guesses—seeds, insect eggs, pebbles—but none felt right. Their symmetry was too precise. Curious, we took photos, hoping a closer look later might help solve the mystery.
Unsure what we were seeing, we showed the pictures to my friend’s grandfather, a lifelong gardener with an encyclopedic knowledge of plants. He smiled immediately. “Those are birds’ nest mushrooms,” he explained. The idea seemed almost unreal. These mushrooms mimic the shape of a nest, complete with what look like eggs. In reality, the tiny spheres are spore packets. When rain hits the cups, the droplets scatter the packets, helping the fungus spread naturally.