mushroom: Quick Facts

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Photos and Videos

gilled mushroom

Two Amanita pantherina mushrooms with brown caps covered in white spots grow among moss and fallen leaves.

A ring of white mushrooms grows in a circle on the forest floor among grass and leaf litter, with trees and shrubs surrounding the area.

Several Ganoderma applanatum, or artist's bracket fungi, grow in horizontal shelves with brown tops and white edges on the trunk of a mossy tree.

A single death cap mushroom, Amanita phalloides, with a pale greenish cap and white gills, grows from the forest floor among fallen leaves and branches.

Amanita pantherina, commonly called panther cap, is a type of toadstool, an inedible or poisonous mushroom.

A mushroom typically consists of a stalk (stipe) and a cap (pileus). As the mushroom develops from an underground mycelium and pushes upward, it is protected by a thin membrane (universal veil), which eventually ruptures, leaving fragments on the cap. Another membrane, attaching the cap to the stalk, also ruptures, allowing the cap to expand and leaving a remnant ring (annulus) on the stalk. Radiating rows of gills are found on the cap's undersurface; these bear the club-shaped reproductive structures (basidia) which form minute spores known as basidiospores, of which a single mushroom may produce millions.

A young adult wearing overalls and a baseball hat in nature. A paper cutout with images of berries, nuts, and

A white mushroom surounded by leaves.

A tall white mushroom in the forest.

Illustration of a red-capped mushroom wearing a red cape next to bold text reading 'Can fungi save the world?' with a smokestack in the background.

Small brown mushrooms growing at the base of a tree.

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Topics

death cap portobello mushroom snow mushroom Amanita bisporigera Caesar’s mushroom Amanita ocreata sulfur mushroom Amanita virosa Coprinus atramentarius grisette yeast toadstool truffle lichen porcini Ascomycota slime mold Polyporales mycosis mycotoxin

Mushrooms growing in forest. (vegetable; fungus; mushroom; macrofungi; epigeous)

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