Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2025. Quarto, laminated boards, colour photographs.

It was a chance encounter in the forest with a purple mushroom that completely changed photographer Stephen Axford’s view of the world. He became obsessed with documenting the largely unexplored kingdom of fungi and, alongside his partner, Catherine Marciniak, capturing the beauty and diversity of fungi in some of the most remote regions on Earth. There are an estimated 2–5 million species of fungi found all over the world, yet with only around 155,000 described so far, there is so much left to discover.

From glowing mushrooms in ancient forests to bizarre, alien-like forms, these extraordinary organisms will challenge how you see the natural world.