What is a Mushroom?

The mushroom world is vast and intricate, and there are many terms to consider, like divisions, classes, families and genus. Some mushrooms share the same division and class, whereas some won’t have anything in common with its neighbour in the forest or grass at all, though they all come under the one big fungus family tree.

The definition of ‘fungus’ (fungi in the plural) is an aerobic organism that lives by decomposing and absorbing organic material. Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus, a mass of probing, branch-like hyphae that act like threads growing throughout the soil or substrate. Mycelium generates from spores, and when two mycelium strains (mycelia) meet they can reproduce, producing fruiting bodies or what we like to call mushrooms.