Cool Facts About Mushrooms

Here's some stuff I never knew about mushrooms and never bothered to find out until now!

The stem of a mushroom is called the "stipe".

The cap is a "pileus"

The gills are lamellae. The gills make spores. The spores make more shrooms.

The tasty kind of mushroom I like to eat is called agaricus bisporus. It has two kinds!
When it is white and immature, it's called the common, or button, or white mushroom. When it is mature, it is a portobello mushroom.

Mushrooms with a cap, stem, and gills are called agarics. That comes from the Latin for "tree fungus."

If you put a mushroom over a surface like paper and leave it there for a while, it will drop spores on it that will create a spore print. Spore prints can be all kinds of colors. Purple, even? Yes, even purple. Impress your friends by telling them that spore prints can even be purple. You read about it from a guy that said so. They will shake their heads so foolishly. But you'll know. You'll have trusted me about the spore prints and we'll have a connection that they never will. Spore prints. Colors. Forever.

No one really knows where the term "mushroom" comes from. And we never ever will. Maybe it's related to the French word for moss. That seems kind of boring though. I reject it.

The term mushroom is kind of vague. Fungus that looks like a mushroom. I'm sure all of this wikipedia information is valid and well-explained by me.

What's the stuff that a mushroom grows from? The mushroom is like a fruit. You know, like oranges and smaller oranges. The stuff it springs up from is called mycelium. Mycelium is a mass of hyphae. To be totally honest, I can't really tell you what hyphae are. Cells? I think they are cells. They do things.  The mycelium breaks down junk that it wants and takes it. It just takes it. That's because it needs to survive in this tough world. No time to ask for mycelium.

Once the mycelium have taken everything they want, they will move outwards and search for more delicious nutrients. They just keep eating and spreading outwards and growing into a circle. This circle can form a fairy ring of mushrooms. It wasn't actually caused by fairies though. We know that now. It was the insatiable hunger of the mycelium, indiscriminately absorbing everything in its center and using it to expand out into the world.

A person who collects mushrooms for eating is called a mycophagist.

Well, those are my cool facts about mushrooms. I hope you learned something and don't develop fungophobia. People used to think mushrooms were worthless and/or Satanic. I don't think they are. I think they are pretty cool.