Mushroom
Fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus.
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. The term is most often applied to fungi that have a stem, cap, and gills, but also describes a variety of other gilled fungi and the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota. Mushrooms have been known for centuries, with the words 'mushroom' and 'toadstool' used without precise definition, and their delineation between edible and poisonous is not clear-cut.
- field
- Mycology
- known_for
- Fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting bodies of fungi; includes edible, toxic, and psychoactive species
- type_species
- Agaricus campestris (field mushroom)
- standard_cultivated_species
- Agaricus bisporus (white button mushroom)
Lore & Background
Mushrooms develop from underground mycelium and can expand rapidly under favorable conditions. They begin as a primordium less than two millimeters in diameter, which enlarges into a button stage, often surrounded by a universal veil that may rupture to leave a volva or warts. A partial veil may cover the gills and later form an annulus on the stalk. The stalk may be central, off-center, lateral, or absent, and gill attachment varies from free to decurrent.
Reader's Guide
Mushrooms vary widely in use: some are edible and nutritious, while others are toxic or psychoactive; many have roles in folk medicine, ecology, and industry. Identification relies on macroscopic structure, spore print color, and microscopic features, though modern methods are becoming molecular. The term 'mushroom' is loosely applied to many macroscopic fungal fruiting bodies, including polypores, puffballs, jelly fungi, coral fungi, bracket fungi, stinkhorns, and cup fungi, and does not have precise taxonomic meaning.
Did You Know?
- The word 'toadstool' first appeared in 14th-century England as a reference for a 'stool' for toads, implying an inedible poisonous fungus.
- Spore print colors include white, brown, black, purple-brown, pink, yellow, and creamy, but almost never blue, green, or red.
- An atypical mushroom is the lobster mushroom, a Russula or Lactarius fruit body deformed by the parasitic fungus Hypomyces lactifluorum.
- The standard for the name 'mushroom' is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus.
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