The Sporing Rain

West of Creatos, there is a great forest. The kingdom of men, out of ignorance, call it, The Great Forest. The wood elves have a very traditional, very beautiful, very long, name for it that few have cared to learn. Even the elves of modern day have given it a nickname, in spite of elders chastising them for disrespecting the land so.
In this great forest grow a great many things, one of which are a particular specie of mushroom. This mushroom, called the Hooded Starseeker has an interesting lifecycle, which is impressively long. From germination through infancy takes about two years. They appear as groups of semi-spherical crowns at ground level. Over the next five years they grow vertically into what looks like long conical tubes. These are the hoods that stay close to the ground, grasping it with many fibers, while the stem pushes upwards, creating a dome of sorts, with a coarse, scratchy surface.
At full maturity the mushroom begins to expel a gas from within, while the hood, fully adhered to the ground and stem, keeps the mushroom in place. As the gas fills the hood, the mushroom swells to many times its original size, forcing out any air within. The fibers keeping it to held to the ground constrict to create an air-tight pocket and the mushroom, now lighter than the air, will make one last trip towards the stars.
The Starseeker doesn't travel alone though. All the Starseekers join in this final flight together. They float above the trees in a silent, but massive exodus from the forest floor. Tens of thousands of floating flora fill the sky.
When the Starseekers begin to bump into one another, the scratchy surface wear away at one another all while creating tiny little sparks. For a short time the night is light up with tiny flickers of light, much like pulling a woolen sweater off in the dark of winter.
This short lived moment creates a great anticipation for the lookers on. They know what they have been waiting for is all but imminent. As the Starseekers wear away at each other, all it takes is one hood to breach and a tiny spark to ignite the gas within. The event is violent and beautiful. The chain reaction of explosions fill the sky as the spores are cast into the air, starting the cycle all over again. The display of pyrotechnics is over in mere seconds and dusk is quite again.
The Sporing Rain is next as the spores float down en masse. It is best to avoid being below as the experience can be overwhelming at best, fatally toxic at worst. You see, the Starseeker grows from hosts caught under its cloud. One's lungs will be filled with billions of spores searching for somewhere to latch. The winners of the race will embrace the tissue as the host violently coughs and vomits up the competition. The effort is in vain as they will succumb and their life will have a new purpose.
Like many things in nature, some of the most beautiful things are also the most deadly.

Type

Natural