Unidentified Bolete Mushroom, Lewisville, WA, USA Stock Image

“A mushroom is the fruiting body of a fungus; just as a berry is the fruiting body of a green plant, bush or tree. The vegetative portion of the fungus that gives rise to mushrooms is a tangle of long cellular threads called mycelia. The substrate on which a mushroom grows may be bare soil, humus, dung, decayed wood, living trees or other organic material. Most of our commercially sold mushrooms are decomposers, such as the white to brown varieties of Agaricus bisporus most commonly seen in grocery stores. Other mushrooms are parasitic, most conspicuously on trees, although often on previously damaged ones. Many fungi also combine with plant rootlets in a mutually beneficial fashion called mycorrhizal.” Mykoweb.com