Friday Facts About Mushrooms

Do you like mushrooms? We do. We've watched several documentaries like Fantastic Fungi on Netflix.

There are several YouTube channels devoted to mushrooms which are extremely healthy for the human body.

Mushrooms belong to the kingdom fungi—as do yeasts, mildews, molds, rusts and smuts.

1. Believe it or not, fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants because they absorb nutrients from organic matter whereas plants produce their food through photosynthesis.

2. LIke animals, fungi need food, water, and oxygen to survive. They have hyphae, branching filaments that make up the mycelium of a fungus, that absorbs nutrients, water, and oxygen from their surroundings and expel waste products and carbon dioxide just as people do.

3. Fungi have chitin, a fibrous substance in their cell walls, the same as animals.

4. Fungi are the largest life forms on the planet because their mycellium under ground can extend for miles underground in search of food.

5. The role of mycelium, the underground network composed of millions of thread-like hyphae, is to reproduce and ensure the survival of its species.

Takeaway Truth

Never eat a wild mushroom unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is safe to eat because many poisonous mushrooms look like edible mushrooms.

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