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Glow-in-the-dark fungi, parasitic orchids, slime moulds that hunt the forest floor for prey - it's a lost world hiding in plain sight. According to ecologist Robert Vennell our forests are overflowing with peculiar organisms.
These specimens - responsible for providing us with fire, food, and medicine - have had an outsized impact on human history and lives, yet remain largely in obscurity.
In his latest book, The Forgotten Forest, Robert takes the reader on a bushwalk unlike any other, shining a light on the dark corners of the New Zealand bush.
Robert Vennell is a curator in the Natural Science department at Auckland Museum and best-selling author of The Meaning of Trees and the Secrets of the Sea.
