About mushrooms

What they are

Mushrooms are a fungus, not a Herbaceous plant. They consist of a cap and a stem.

A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. Toadstool generally denotes one poisonous to humans.

The standard for the name “mushroom” is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word “mushroom” is most often applied to those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the underside of the cap. “Mushroom” also describes a variety of other gilled fungi, with or without stems, therefore the term is used to describe the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota. The gills produce microscopic spores which help the fungus spread across the ground or its occupant surface.

Forms deviating from the standard morphology usually have more specific names, such as “bolete”, “puffball”, “stinkhorn”, and “morel”, and gilled mushrooms themselves are often called “agarics” in reference to their similarity to Agaricus or their order Agaricales. By extension, the term “mushroom” can also refer to either the entire fungus when in culture, the thallus (called mycelium) of species forming the fruiting bodies called mushrooms, or the species itself

Where they grow

Mushrooms can grow on forest floors, house walls, meadows, at the edge of forests, and within the darkness of the forest itself.

What they eat

Mushrooms are fungi that eat organic matter in order to survive. The primary source of nutrition for most fungi is the remains of dead organisms, such as animals, bugs, and plant material. Mushrooms do not contain chlorophyll, so they do not produce their own food. Saprophyte mushrooms are the most common, which feed on dead plant and animal matter. Parasitic mushrooms can eat living things like trees and even animals. By metabolizing organic material, mushrooms obtains their nutrition and also supply the earth with rich humus Some people believe that mushrooms are pests but they can feed us, heal us, free us, and save our world.

“The future is fungi” -Dr Suzanne Simard