Have you ever come across an image whose contents elicit a whole host of mental questions?

I’m still sourcing images for the book (only one more week!) and in my work, I came across this:

It is from a stock photography site and the only real description for it is the word ‘Russian’.  This obviously incites even more questions. 

What kind of mushroom grows like a bowl? Where does it grow?  Can you eat it? Can you dry it in to cool shapes for interesting craft projects or floral arranging? Does it only grow in Russia — what about elsewhere?  Is this a freak occurrence or can you just go for a hike and have a reasonable chance of finding one of these things (in Russia)?

And what about the little guys inside? Are these edible? Are they the same (but smaller) version of the big bowl mushroom?  If you can eat them what are they like?  So many questions….but I soooo want to go into the woods and harvest a giant mushroom bowl that I can fill up with other baby mushrooms.

Mycologists…what do you know?

images Dmitriy Tereshchenko