Mushrooms

📖 In short

A mushroom is a kind of fungus shaped like a little umbrella: a stalk with a cap on top. Mushrooms grow in forests and meadows after rain. Some kinds are tasty to eat, but some are very poisonous, so you must never eat a mushroom you find in the wild.

🤩 Did you know?

There are about 3300 kinds of mushrooms.
Mushroom caps range from less than half a centimeter to about 45 centimeters across.
Some fairy rings are more than 300 years old.
The white button mushrooms we eat are grown in dark, damp places.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 What we see is just a small part

The part we see above ground is just like a fruit! The real fungus is a network of very thin white threads spreading underground or inside wood.

🔍 Under the cap

Under a mushroom's cap are thin gills like the pages of a book, which release millions of tiny spores that the wind carries away, and new mushrooms grow from them.

💡 Fairy rings

Sometimes mushrooms grow in a big circle on the grass, because their threads underground spread out from the middle. In some countries people call them “fairy rings”.

🎯 Careful!

Some poisonous mushrooms look like edible ones, and only experts can tell them apart. So don't touch or eat wild mushrooms; only eat mushrooms bought at the market.