Mushroom

Mushroom
The toxic mushroom Amanita muscaria, commonly known as "fly agaric."
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Basidiomycota

A mushroom (also called a toadstool) is the part of a fungus that is like a fruit of a plant. Unlike plants, mushrooms do not use sunlight to make energy for themselves. Some mushrooms are edible (safe to be eaten), and are used for cooking in many countries, such as China, Korea and Europe. Other mushrooms, however, are poisonous, and can kill people (or make them very sick) if they are eaten. People who look for mushrooms to eat are called mycophagists, meaning "mushroom eater", while The act of looking for mushrooms is simply called "mushrooming".

Kinds of mushrooms

A mushroom

• Agarics (includes very poisonous, and hallucinogenic kinds)
• Boletus (edible)
• Bracket fungi
• Chanterelles (edible)
• Coral fungi (edible)
• Cup fungi (usually edible)
• Jelly fungi (usually edible, but tastes bad)
• Polypores (similar to boletes)
• Psychedelic (also known as shrooms)
• Puffballs (usually edible)
• Stinkhorns (edible, but smells bad)
• Tooth fungi

Structure of mushrooms

Most mushrooms have a stem and a cap. The bottom of the cap sometimes has gills to hold spores, and sometimes holds the spores themselves.

Other websites

Identification

• Mushroom Expert
• MykoWeb
• An Aid to Mushroom Identification, Simon's Rock College
• Online Edible Wild Mushroom Field Guide
• Mushroom Observer (mushroomobserver.org), a collaborative mushroom recording and identification project
• list of field guides to mushrooms, from the International Field Guides database

Research associations

• Mushroom Mania; the Newsletter
• North American Mycological Association
• International Society for Mushroom Science
• Pacific Northwest Fungi Online Journal