Little alien of the forest

This afternoon, I was unable to find a cluster of little Earth Stars that I had seen at Brown-Lowery Provincial Park on the last two or three times I had been there. However, quite unexpectedly, I came across two of them in a different location. This one was growing in moss.

"The Earth Star is a striking soil fungus, so named because the outer wall of the spore-bearing body splits open into a star.

One metaphor refers to the rays standing on their tips, like a ballet dancer standing on their toes. Like other earthstars, the outer, leathery wall (peridium) splits open into the rays of a star, but the rays fold down into "legs" that support the spherical spore case that sits on a short stalk or pedicel. The rays are firmly attached to a clump of mycelium and leaf debris."
From "The Amazing Fungi " website.