Hi! Today I will be writing a featured article in the collection of the 1965 October National Geographic magazine - volume 128.
BIZZIARE WORLD OF FUNGI: What are morel mushrooms? Morel mushrooms are crinkly shaped, gray to brown fungi that appear for a few rare weeks in spring. morels are edible and quite tasty.
However not all mushrooms are edible, One type of inedible mushroom us nicknamed the "Destroying Angle Mushroom". It has a innocent white colour and is said to be quite tasty. This type of mushroom can cause death. A family of red mushrooms, (toadstools) are usually toxic. Many types of white and yellow mushrooms are also inedible despite their innocent-looking colours.
How do mushrooms kill? One example is Aminita bisporigera ("Destroying Angle Mushroom"). Nothing happens for a few hours but then your tissues start breaking and in a few days you die. "Destroying Angle Mushroom" is one of the most death-causing mushrooms.
However, fungi, good or bad, are vital to forests. Fungi live off of trees and transport them to trees. 350 million years old fungi reveal that some fungi lived off of tree roots.
Now, how do fungi grow? Well one way is like this: A wind-borne mushroom spore lands on a grassy field, germinates and eventually sends out a maze of threadlike filaments. These filaments penetrates the humus and grass roots and eventually becomes a circular plaque a few inches below the surface. When seasons and weather are right mushrooms pop up.
Many mushrooms are edible but only a few are eaten regularly. Frenchmen eat, on average 32 ounces of mushrooms and year while Americans only eat 14 ounces.
Many fungi are dangerous. A fungi blight caused the Iris famine of the 1840s. Bread mold is actually clusters of spores. Also, thickets of fibers can invade any organism and cause its decay.
While many fungi are dangerous, some are actually "good". Some fungi cause the decay of debris. Without them, debris would choke our forests and fields. Yeasts help in baking and brewing. Penicillium notatum created Penicillin and two other kinds of Penicillium creates two of our most favoured cheeses.
Some mushrooms turn to ink. Genus Coprinus have gills that turn to ink and "Stinkhorns" have a sticky end.
Animals eat mushrooms. Squirrels eat mushrooms, so do insects, chipmunks and turtles. Even cattle, deer, slugs and snails eat mushrooms. While most animals don't eat mushrooms on purpose, some humans do!
Indians eat semipoisonous mushrooms. Tribal folk from the Russian region believed eating Amanita muscaria pulled back a veil to reveal the mushroom's spirit.
Conclusion: So in short, mushrooms and fungi are interesting, edible or inedible, can be "good" or "bad" plants.
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