We all know that mushrooms are awesome. Check out these amazing facts to impress your roomies, or should I say “shoomies” lol. ha. yep, I said it.
10 Amazing Facts About Mushrooms
1. Do you think mushrooms are like plants? Wrong! Mushrooms are more closely related to HUMANS than plants!
2. The largest organism in the world is in Oregon and it is…. a mushroom. A specimen of Armillaria mushrooms, or honey fungus, exists in Malheur National Forest in Oregon that occupies a total area of 2,385 acres. That’s equivalent to over 1700 football fields!
3. Fungi help trees talk to each other. Tiny threads called mycelium create a network under the earth which allows trees to talk. Trees can warn each other about environmental danger and share nutrients through this network.
4. There are over 70 difference species of mushrooms that glow in the dark. Sounds like an impressive number, but it isn’t really – that’s 70 out of 100,000 known species of fungi. Still neat though – check out this time lapse.
5. According to a paper published in Science Advances, the first mushrooms evolved on Earth between 715 and 810 million years ago. For reference, that is within the time period known as the precambrian time, which starts with the Earth’s creation 4.5 billion years ago and ends about 500 million years ago when complex, multi-celled life-forms became prevalent.
Don’t eat it. Just don’t
6. The Death Cap Mushroom is known as the deadliest mushroom in the world, particularly because it looks like edible mushrooms like Caesar’s Mushroom. As little as half a mushroom contains enough toxin to kill an adult human. It’s been said to kill a Pope (Pope Clement VII), along with a few Roman Emperors
7. Sporopollenin, the hard outer shell of spores, is one of the toughest materials in the plant kingdom. We have no idea how it decays in nature and researchers were not able to break it down to study it’s components until 2018. Researchers are figuring out how to utilize sporopollen to combat climate change, by using its longevity to suck up planet-warming carbon dioxide, according to an article by MIT (https://wi.mit.edu/news/designing-plants-dont-decay)
8. Some mushrooms create their own wind to wisp spores away to create more mushrooms. Just check the awesome video above!
9. In many countries, magic mushrooms are illegal, but psilocybin spores are NOT. Like here in the USA – check out our store!
10. There is a mushroom that tastes just like fried chicken. It grows on trees in Europe and North America. It’s called Laetiporus sulphureus, or Chicken of the Woods. Look out, KFC!
Thanks for Reading!