Do you think mushrooms are plants? You might be surprised to hear that they aren't, but it's true!
Mushrooms are a part of the fungus (fun-ghus) kingdom, and are very different from plants like grass and trees. Fungus, or Fungi (fun-guy) for multiple, do not need sunlight to grow, and they also don't use sunlight for food like plants do.
Instead, mushrooms feed off of dead plants and animals, helping to clean up the ecosystem that they grow in. This also helps by making the dirt incredibly rich in nutrients, letting plants grow in that area much faster than before.
Mushrooms require dark areas and lots of water to grow on top of this, and they grow really fast too! Most mushrooms grow within a few weeks or even days!
Fungi do not grow and reproduce like plants or animals either, as animals give birth to younger animals and plants produce seeds that are planted. But mushrooms do something different, they make more mushrooms by spreading these small, microscopic puffs into the air, these small puffs are called spores (spo-or).
There are three stages that a mushroom goes through when growing, starting from being a spore and ending when it is a fully grown mushroom!
The first stage is the Button Stage, this happens when a spore touches the ground and begins to grow, small thread-like roots sprout out and begin to take in nutrition from the environment.
As the mushroom grows, it forms a small bulb known as a button, and this is what will become the mushroom. The Button Stage ends when the button soon pushes open and the stem for the mushroom forms, beginning to grow above the ground as the main part of the mushroom.
The second stage is the Pinhead Stage, this is where the mushroom begins to grow in the shape that we normally see. Not much happens in this stage as the pinhead shape takes form on the fungal (fun-gull) growth, and soon the final stage happens
The final stage is the Adult Stage, when the mushroom is fully grown and the cap spreads out to take the normal appearance as a regular mushroom, the stem fully formed and small gills underneath the top of the mushroom. These gills are actually the roots of the mushroom!
So now the mushroom is fully grown, ready to go through the rest of its life and create more fungi in the world around it by releasing more spores into the air. A never ending cycle of life that will continue. Pretty interesting, right?
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Mushrooms: Are They A Fungi?
Short StoryA rough draft for a children's story that I am currently writing. If someone reads this, feel free to possibly give advice.
