50 Fun Facts About Mushrooms

A mushroom is technically which part of a fungus?

The bulk of the organism is the underground mycelium; the mushroom is just the part that pops up to spread spores.

Fungal cell walls contain which substance, also found in insect shells?

Like animals, fungi are heterotrophs that digest food outside their bodies and absorb it.

Genetically, fungi are more closely related to which group than to plants?

Mycology used to be treated as a branch of botany.

Roughly how many fungal species have been formally described, out of an estimated 2.2 to 3.8 million?

At least 300 of the known species can cause disease in humans.

The word 'toadstool', usually meaning a poisonous mushroom, first appeared in England in which century?

'Mushroom' itself may come from the French mousseron, a reference to moss.

The 'humongous fungus' of Oregon's Malheur National Forest belongs to which genus?

It covers about 3.5 square miles, may weigh 35,000 tons and is thought to be around 8,000 years old.

The Malheur National Forest 'humongous fungus' is estimated to be about how old?

Its honey mushrooms surface each autumn while the rest of the organism spreads underground as black 'shoestring' rhizomorphs.

Which mushroom is responsible for about 90% of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide?

Half a mushroom can kill an adult, and its amatoxins survive cooking and freezing.

Which Roman emperor may have been murdered with a dish of death caps in AD 54?

Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, in 1740, is another suspected victim.

The death cap's principal toxin, alpha-amanitin, attacks which organs?

Symptoms are often delayed, which is part of what makes the mushroom so dangerous.

The 'destroying angel' mushrooms are notable for being what colour?

They share the death cap's amatoxins and are among the most toxic mushrooms known.

The red-capped, white-spotted mushroom of fairy tales and Super Mario is which species?

It has been controversially linked to Santa Claus, Viking berserkers and Vedic soma, though the evidence is thin.

The fly agaric may have earned its name from its historical use to do what?

A medieval belief held that flies could enter the head and cause madness.

Indigenous peoples of which region used the fly agaric as an intoxicant?

Drying converts its ibotenic acid into the more potent muscimol; fatal poisonings are extremely rare.

Why did Shigeru Miyamoto add a size-changing mushroom to his 1985 platform game?

The Super Mushroom that grows Mario is modelled on the fly agaric's red-and-white cap.

Button, cremini and portobello mushrooms are all what?

Agaricus bisporus is cultivated in more than 70 countries; the portobello is simply the mature brown form.

The white button mushroom was discovered in 1925 on a farm in which US state?

Pennsylvania remains the top mushroom-producing state, and Kennett Square calls itself the mushroom capital.

Which borough in the top US mushroom-producing state is the historic leader in mushroom production?

The state celebrates September as Mushroom Month.

Which country produces about half of all the world's cultivated mushrooms?

Poland, meanwhile, was the world's largest mushroom exporter in 2014.

The earliest written record of cultivating the shii-tree mushroom dates to 1209 in which country?

The Japanese name combines shii, the tree it grows on, and take, mushroom.

Enoki mushrooms take their Japanese name from which tree, at whose base they grow?

In Mandarin they are 'gold needle mushrooms'.

Oyster mushrooms belong to which genus, the world's second most important in cultivation?

They account for about 25% of world production and some species are used to clean up pollutants.

Morel mushrooms are recognisable by which distinctive cap texture?

They can be toxic if eaten raw, and are hard to farm, so wild harvesting is a multimillion-dollar business.

Boyne City in which state hosts a century-old National Morel Mushroom Festival every spring?

One observer called it a modern North American Canterbury Tales.

The chanterelle mushroom's name comes from a Greek word meaning what?

Chanterelle derives from kantharos; the German Pfifferling refers instead to its peppery taste.

Italy's white truffle, Tuber magnatum, is most associated with the countryside around which town?

Truffles are nicknamed 'diamonds of the earth' and can sell for thousands of dollars a pound.

Italy banned the use of pigs for hunting the underground delicacy in 1985 for what reason?

Dogs are now preferred because they do not particularly want to eat the truffle.

Studies in 1990 found that truffle-hunting pigs and dogs are actually detecting which compound?

The old theory was that sows were drawn to a chemical resembling a boar sex pheromone.

Matsutake, prized in Japanese cuisine, takes its name from which tree?

Domestic Japanese matsutake can fetch $1,000 a kilogram at the start of the season.

Huitlacoche, a Mexican delicacy, is actually what?

The smut swells corn kernels into blue-black galls that are eaten in quesadillas and soups.

The bracket fungus Laetiporus sulphureus, or sulphur shelf, has a second common name inspired by what?

Chicken of the woods is often described as tasting like chicken.

A mature giant puffball releases about how many spores, more than any other known organism?

Calvatia gigantea can grow to a foot or more across.

Why do fairy rings form in a circle?

One ring near Belfort in France is about 300 metres in radius and thought to be over 700 years old.

What do the French call fairy rings?

The German Hexenringe likewise means witches' rings.

'Foxfire' is the name for what fungal phenomenon?

Aristotle recorded the cold light in 382 BC, and it lit the instruments of the early submarine Turtle.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, the 'zombie-ant fungus', was first described in 1859 by which naturalist?

It hijacks carpenter ants and makes them bite onto leaves before killing them.

In HBO's The Last of Us, civilisation collapses after a Cordyceps fungus adapts to what?

Episode two names Ophiocordyceps unilateralis as the culprit; the show won nine Primetime Emmys.

R. Gordon Wasson publicised his Mexican mushroom ceremony in a 1957 article in which magazine?

Albert Hofmann identified psilocybin as the active compound the following year.

Which US state was the first to legalise psilocybin for therapeutic use, in 2020?

Colorado followed in 2022, legalising personal use, growing and sharing.

Which famous children's author also made significant contributions to mycology?

The creator of Peter Rabbit produced detailed studies of fungi and spore germination.

Penicillin was discovered by accident in 1928-29 by which scientist, from a Penicillium mould?

Howard Florey and Ernst Chain purified it, and the three shared a Nobel Prize.

A lichen is a partnership between a fungus and what?

Lichens were the life form that first brought the word 'symbiosis' into biology.

Yeasts, the fungi behind bread and beer, make up roughly what share of described fungal species?

At least 1,500 yeast species are recognised.

Prototaxites, possibly a giant fungus, was the tallest land organism in which era?

Fungal fossils only become common in the Rhynie chert about 400 million years ago.

Fungi play what essential ecological role?

They feed by secreting enzymes into their surroundings and absorbing the dissolved result.

Who narrates the 2019 documentary Fantastic Fungi?

Mycologist Paul Stamets features heavily and the film holds a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

Where was sterilised 'pure culture' mushroom spawn first produced in 1893?

Before that, growers dug up wild mycelium and hoped it was not carrying pathogens.

Fungal spores were first observed under a microscope in 1588 by whom?

Mycology only became systematic after the microscope's development in the 17th century.

Which cultivated mushroom, about 10% of world production, is grown mainly in Japan, China and South Korea?

It grows on dead logs of the shii tree, and its cultivation was recorded in China as early as 1209.

Roughly how many kilograms of mushrooms does the average person in China eat per year?

That is spread across 1.4 billion people.