Follow the Rain: Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak’s love letter to native fungi

From bioluminescence to zombie ants, the world of fungi is strange and wondrous. Now, a film by two Aussie ‘fungi hunters’ is coming to Netflix.

Fungus from Follow the Rain. Picture: Stephen Axford

You’ve probably seen their time-lapse sequences of mushrooms bursting into riotous life in David Attenborough’s Planet Earth II or the 2019 film Fantastic Fungi. Now ­Stephen Axford and Catherine Marciniak, obsessive “fungi hunters” from northern NSW, have made their own feature-length doco, Follow the Rain, which is on Netflix from September 1. Filmed across eastern Australia in 2022 and 2023, it’s their love letter to native fungi, showcasing mushrooms of exquisite forms, colours and textures, some of which are featured here.

Bioluminescent “ghost fungus”. Picture: Stephen Axford

A mushroom is only the ephemeral sporing mechanism of the ­fungus; the organism itself is a mass of thin hollow filaments that fuse, branch and grow into a network known as mycelium. ­Mycelium ­colonises the ground all around us, and it’s curious stuff: a fungus has no brain or central nervous system – it’s an entirely decentralised ­organism – yet it’s capable of “intelligent” behaviour, whether ­foraging for food such as fallen timber, forming symbiotic ­“mycorrhizal” relationships with the roots of plants and trees, ­bioluminescence, or parasitizing insects.

A victim of the ‘ant-zombie fungus’. Picture: Stephen Axford

The dead ant, pictured here, was ­infected by a species of Cordyceps known as the “zombie-ant fungus”, which first colonised its body then took over its mind, compelling it to climb a high stalk and grip on tightly – at which point the ­fungus sprouted an antler-like appendage out of the ant’s head that rained spores onto other victims. How is a brainless mycelial ­network ­capable of such sophisticated behaviours? No one knows.

In fact, says Marciniak, there’s a lot that isn’t known about fungi, which were only assigned their own Kingdom in 1969 (before that, they were lumped in with plants). There are thought to be 2-5 million species, yet only 150,000 have been described by science. The lovely blue one pictured here is among half a dozen new ­species she and Axford have discovered. In retirement, they’re ­documenting their finds on their Planet Fungi channels on ­social media, where they have 250,000 followers. (“We call ourselves Senior Fungi Influencers,” she laughs.)

Coprinopsis pulchricaerulea was discovered by the couple. Picture: Stephen Axford

Fungus from Follow the Rain. Picture: Stephen Axford

Fungi can be harmful to us, of course – HBO’s post-apocalyptic ­series The Last of Us, in which a mutated Cordyceps infects humans, played on very real fears of a fungal pandemic – but they’re important to our lives in so many ways. Fungi are part of our vital gut flora, and give us drugs such as antibiotics and statins; mycorrhizal fungi underpin the world’s food crops; and species of ­Psilocybe can engender powerful mystical experiences in humans, a phenomenon that’s now being harnessed for its therapeutic potential. Also, without the single-celled fungi known as yeasts we wouldn’t have bread, wine or beer. So next time you blow the froth off a cold one, raise your glass to ’em!