The fascinating world of mushrooms
Mushrooms are all around us. We see them on lawns, in fields, on trees and on the forest floor.
They are everywhere in nature, yet they are still poorly understood. Nearly 2 000 species have now
been classified in Québec, but probably more than a thousand others have yet to be discovered. Some
are gastronomer’s delight, others can kill...
What is a mushroom?
The mushrooms we see sprouting suddenly on the lawn or in the forest are only the visible part of
complex organisms. Mushrooms are fructifications, or the fruits, from a vegetative system called
mycelium which is composed of tiny filaments. The mycelium lives in various substrata such as humus,
rotting wood and the bark of trees.
The fructifications are solely for reproduction. Through their spores, which are comparable to the
seeds of plants, mushrooms are able to spred and colonize new habitats. In the typically shaped
mushroom, the spores are produced on the underside of the cap. The cap, closed in the juvenile stage,
opens and spreads at maturity allowing the spores to be dispersed into the air.
When the spores land in a favorable place, and weather conditions are right, they can germinate and
produce a new mycelium.
For a mushroom to fructify, or take fruit, there must first be an encounter between two primary
mycelia of the same species but opposite polarity (+ and -). The secondary mycelium resulting from
this encounter can develop rapidly and bear fruit when the temperature and humidity levels are
favorable. Most species produce fructifications lasting only 2 to 7 days. Once the spores have been
dispersed, the specimens decompose very rapidly and can disappear without trace within a week - almost
as suddenly as they appeared !
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