the.com/mushroom
the part of a fungus you see — the fruit of an underground empire you don't
means The fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, especially the familiar capped-and-stemmed kind that pushes up from soil or wood overnight.
from From the Old French 'mousseron,' which English borrowed in the late Middle Ages and slowly reshaped into 'mushroom.' The French word is thought to be tied to 'mousse,' meaning moss — pointing to the damp, mossy places these things love to appear. The English spelling wandered for centuries (mushrom, mushrump, and stranger forms) before settling, and folk-influence may have nudged it toward the familiar '-room' ending, though that part is more accident than meaning.
- hidden body
- The real organism is a vast root-like web underground
- largest life
- An Oregon fungus spans 3.7 square miles
- closer to you
- Fungi are genetically nearer animals than plants
- spore math
- A single cap can release billions of spores
- glow trick
- Some species emit eerie green bioluminescent light
amanita muscaria — red and white spotted mushroom used in shamanic rituals across siberia for thousands of years
cordyceps militaris — parasitic fungus that controls ant behavior, found in tropical forests worldwide
psilocybe cubensis — psychoactive mushroom containing psilocybin, native to mesoamerica and southeast asia
armillaria solidipes — oregon's malheur national forest specimen spans 2,384 acres, largest organism on earth by area