Sometimes, perhaps, too cool for their own good. The author discusses the ill-fitting relationship between conservation and aesthetics. Flagship species, those with all the looks and charisma, are needed to represent the broader plight, but as with any major celebrity, they can be trampled underfoot in the stampede for the perfect selfie.

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When the author is confronted by a flustered ranger in Iceland who thinks she has illegally camped, she discovers he has witnessed his homeland diminished beneath tourist boots. Iceland has recently become an en vogue tourist destination, but with such a short growing season, the vibrant mosses and lichens that cling to rocks will take decades to recover, if ever.

The geographic scope of Underground Lovers is impressive. Aside from the steaming volcanoes of Iceland and the simmering bush, we visit the towering European Alps and the fecund woods of Oregon. The book also hosts an ensemble of other mycologists and ground-dwellers that range from an American mushroom dealer who can detect a maggot infestation with a subtle squeeze of the mushroom’s cap to slugs asleep like puppies in the interior of a “common puffball”.

Underground Lovers is about hidden worlds on the brink of vanishing, but its lessons extend beyond fungi. Slowness and humility are embedded as virtues, running against the grain of a culture obsessed with speed and personal branding. And so, like mushrooms, its profundity lives hidden in plain sight, available to anyone who cares to crouch and take a closer look.