In the kingdom of mushrooms

The mushroom kingdom is very diverse. Scientists know about 100 thousand species of these organisms.
Since ancient times, mushrooms have played an important role in human nutrition. It is known that primitive hunters and gatherers were already able to recognize not only their nutritional properties, but also knew how to distinguish edible mushrooms from poisonous and inedible ones.
Mushrooms which we usually see in the forest, consist of a cap and a stalk. This is only the aboveground part of the mushroom, or the fruiting body. And underground from the legs stretch to different sides thin white threads. This mycelium- underground part of the mushroom. It absorbs water from the soil with mineral salts dissolved in it. Mushrooms cannot produce their own nutrients like plants can. They absorb nutrients from dead plant and animal matter in the soil. At the same time, mushrooms contribute to the destruction of the remains of organisms and the formation of humus.
Many mushrooms in the forest are closely related to trees. The threads of the mycelium grow together with the roots of trees and help them absorb water and salts from the soil. In return, the fungi receive from the plants the nutrients that the plants produce in the light. This is how mushrooms and trees help each other.
The forest also needs mushrooms because many forest animals feed on them. Mushrooms are the wealth of the forest.

Mushroom parts

What part of the mushroom is the riddle talking about?

The little white thread went on a brisk spree:
She walked underground, sewed and sewed earth,
And then outside she braided herself more tightly -
Braided into a skein, curled into a ball.
Answer: mycelium

Fill out the table.

Write their names under the pictures of mushrooms. Can these mushrooms be eaten?

These mushrooms are inedible and poisonous mushrooms. You can't eat them!

Solve the crossword puzzle "Mushrooms".

Horizontally:
4. The time of day when most people go for mushrooms. Answer: morning
5. The upper aerial part of the mushroom. Answer: hat
7. The underground part of the mushroom. Answer: mycelium
8. Tool for processing and cleaning mushrooms. Answer: knife
9. A mushroom that is grown and sold in grocery stores.
Answer: champignon
12. A mushroom that got its name from its color. Answer: saffron milk cap
13. King of mushrooms. Answer: boletus
15. A mushroom whose cap is always wet. Answer: oil can

Vertically:
1. Mushroom, some types of which can be eaten raw. Answer: russula
2. Poisonous mushroom. Answer: toadstool
3. Mushroom seed. Answer: dispute
6. A place where mushrooms grow. Answer: forest
7. A man picking mushrooms. Answer: mushroom picker
10. Handsome inedible mushroom. Answer: fly agaric
11. The lower aerial part of the mushroom. Answer: leg
14. Mushroom growing on tree stumps big family. Answer: honey fungus

Taxonomy:

• Division: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
• Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
• Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
• Subclass: Agaricomycetidae (Agaricomycetes)
• Order: Boletales
• Family: Rhizopogonaceae (Rhizopogonaceae)
• Genus: Rhizopogon (Rhizopogon)
• View: Rhizopogon vulgaris (Rhizopogon common)

Other names for the mushroom:

Other names:

• Common truffle;

• Rhizopogon is common;

• Truffle is ordinary.

External description

Fruit bodies Rhizopogon vulgaris is characterized by a tuberous or round (irregular) shape. at the same time, only single strands of mushroom mycelium can be seen on the soil surface, while the main part of the fruiting body develops underground. The diameter of the described mushroom varies from 1 to 5 cm. The surface of the common rhizopogon is characterized by a grayish-brown color. In mature, old mushrooms, the color of the fruiting body may change, becoming olive-brown, with a yellowish tint. In young mushrooms of the common rhizopogon, the surface is velvety to the touch, while in old ones it becomes smooth. The inside of the mushroom is dense, oily and thick. At first it has a light shade, but when the mushroom spores ripen, it becomes yellowish, sometimes brownish-green.

The pulp of Rhizopogon vulgaris does not have any specific aroma or taste, it consists of large quantity special narrow chambers in which fungal spores are located and mature. The lower region of the fruiting body contains small roots called rhizomorphs. They are white.

The spores of the fungus Rhizopogon vulgaris are characterized by an ellipsoidal shape and spindle-shaped structure, smooth, with a yellowish tint. A drop of oil can be seen along the edges of the spores.

Season and habitat of the mushroom

Common rhizopogon (Rhizopogon vulgaris) is widespread in spruce, pine-oak and pine forests. This mushroom can sometimes also be found in deciduous or mixed type. Grows mainly under coniferous trees, pines and spruces. However, sometimes this type of mushroom can be found under trees of other species (including deciduous ones). For its growth, ordinary rhizopogon chooses soil or litter from fallen leaves. It is not found too often, it grows on the surface of the soil, but more often it is deeply buried inside it. Active fruiting and increased productivity of common rhizopogon occur from June to October. It is almost impossible to see single mushrooms of this species, since Rhizopogon vulgaris grows only in small groups.

Edibility

Common rhizopogon is one of the little-studied mushrooms, but is considered edible. Mycologists recommend eating only young fruiting bodies of Rhizopogon vulgaris.

Similar types and differences from them

Common rhizopogon (Rhizopogon vulgaris) is very similar in appearance to another mushroom from the same genus, called . True, in the latter, when damaged and under strong pressure, the flesh turns red, and the color of the outer surface of the fruiting body is white (in mature mushrooms it becomes olive-brown or yellowish).

Other information about the mushroom

Rhizopogon vulgaris has one interesting feature. Most of the fruiting body of this mushroom develops underground, so it is often difficult for mushroom pickers to detect this variety.

In the middle zone of our country, mushroom picking begins in early spring. Morels are the first to emerge from the ground, from mid-June - boletus mushrooms, followed by russula. Then, from July, the boletuses grow. Porcini appears in the second half of July. A little earlier, a poisonous red fly agaric appears, which seems to signal that soon there will be porcini mushrooms, followed by saffron milk caps. The latest mushrooms are autumn mushrooms.

In the place where we pick the mushroom, the loose forest soil is pierced by a mass of thin, barely noticeable, intertwining threads - hyphae. The accumulation of such threads forms the main part of the mushroom - mycelium, or mycelium. The mycelium lives in the soil for a long time; it tolerates drought and the cold season here. At unfavorable conditions the mycelium stops growing and becomes numb, and conditions improve - it begins to grow again. When there is enough moisture and heat, dense fruiting bodies bearing spores appear above the soil surface, formed from the mycelium. These are what we usually call mushrooms. Among them there are edible ones, but many are also inedible, because these fruiting bodies are either tough, like tinder fungi growing on trees, or poisonous, like fly agaric, death cap.

The mushrooms that we collect in the forest are only the fruiting bodies of the plant. The plant itself, the mycelium, or mycelium, is located underground.

Some mushrooms, in search of food, enter into relationships (symbiosis) with green plants. A number of fungi settle on the ends of the small roots of certain forest trees, and sometimes grasses. So, porcini mushroom grows under pine or oak, and boletus grows under birch. The roots of these plants receive nutrition from the mycelium of the fungus. - water and minerals that are formed in mycelial cells as a result of the decomposition of organic compounds. And for this, the mushroom receives from the roots on which it has settled some of the organic nutrients it needs. Fungi and algae living in peculiar colonies called lichens help each other. Algae entwined with fungal hyphae are better provided with moisture and minerals, the fungus is given organic food by dead and weakened algae cells (see article “Symbiosis in the plant world”).

In accordance with the nature of their nutrition, mushrooms transform complex organic compounds into simpler ones, up to complete mineralization. Mushrooms can be found everywhere: on a green crust of bread (mold), on beams and rafters of basements (house mushroom), on trees (tinder fungus). Fungi include the well-known yeast (see article “Microbes”). Botanists count about 70 thousand species of fungi. Some fungi produce substances useful to people in his economic activity. Thus, yeast fungi, digesting sugar during fermentation, decompose it into wine alcohol and carbon dioxide. The fermentation process provides yeast with the energy necessary for their vital functions and replaces the respiration process. Yeast is used by winemakers to produce alcohol and by bakers to bake more airy bread. Antibiotics are obtained from the mycelium of green mold penicillium and many other microscopic fungi, and valuable medicinal products are obtained from ergot sclerotia.

Under favorable conditions, the mycelium is capable of continuously growing, covering new parts of living or dead organisms that serve as food for the fungus. Any part of the mycelium, when separated, can give rise to a new mycelium. If, for example, you cut out a piece of manure soil with part of a champignon mycelium and transfer it to fresh manure soil, then the hyphae from these pieces will quickly grow in a new nutrient medium and the new overgrown mycelium will begin to produce fruiting bodies, i.e., ordinary edible champignons.

For faster reproduction, fungi use spores, which are individual cells. Spores are easily carried away by water or wind over long distances. Leave a piece of bread on a plate in a humid atmosphere, and mold hyphae will appear on it. Pour grape juice into an open container. In a few days it will ferment due to the presence of yeast in it. Both bread mold and yeast developed from spores floating in the air.

Fungal spores sometimes simply separate from the mycelial hyphae. Molds of the genus Penicillium have branches at the ends of individual hyphae. The terminal cells of these branches separate and turn into freely spreading spores. In white mold that appears on bread, special spherical sacs are formed at the end of individual hyphae - sporangia, filled with spores. The sporangia burst and the spores become airborne.

Edible mushrooms: 1 - porcini mushroom (boletus); 2 - oiler; 3 - camelina; 4 - line; 5 - morel; 6 - autumn honey mushrooms; 7 - summer honey mushrooms; 8 - boletus; 9 - truffle; 10 - breast;

But sometimes fungal spores are formed in a more complex way - through the sexual process. In this case, a new generation is obtained from a cell formed from the fusion of two parent ones. Thus, offspring can combine the characteristics of two parents. Sexual reproduction, apparently, was present in the ancestors of fungi and was fully preserved only in lower fungi. When the mycelium of white bread mold, for example, experiences difficulties in feeding, the cells at the ends of its hyphae merge with similar cells of the neighboring mycelium in contact with them. This fusion produces spores - zygotes. They are covered with a thick shell and, when separated from their mycelia, are able to tolerate more severe conditions than ordinary spores from sporangia.

11 - champignon; 12 - raincoat; 13 - boletus 14 - russula; 15 - chanterelle; 16 - wave.

Poisonous mushrooms: 17 - false honey mushrooms; 18 - pale grebe; 19 - red fly agaric; 20 - panther fly agaric

Most of our edible mushrooms, after the fusion of two nuclei, form spores on fruiting bodies consisting of a stump and a cap. Some mushrooms have plates radiating from the stump on the lower part of the cap, while others have caps pierced, like a sponge, with small tubes. On the plates and tubes there are cells with spores sitting on them. Place the cap of a mature mushroom with its bottom side on paper for a day. During this time, so many spores will spill out that an imprint of the underside of the cap will form on the paper.

Of the mushrooms with spores in the tubes of the cap, white mushroom, boletus, boletus, butterdish, etc. are found in our forests. The white mushroom, or boletus, can live in symbiosis with pine, spruce, oak and therefore grows in coniferous and mixed forests. In pine forests its cap is dark brown, and in birch and spruce forests- yellow-brown or gray-brown. The underside of the cap of a young mushroom is almost white, while that of an old one is yellowish-green. The stump of the mushroom is cylindrical, with a thickening at the bottom.

The boletus cap is usually whitish-gray or brownish-gray, but depending on the soil it can be completely white (in a swamp) or dark brown. The bottom of the cap of a young mushroom is white, while that of an old one is gray with brown spots; the stump is cylindrical, slightly thickened at the bottom. The cap of the boletus is red or orange, and whitish-gray below; the stump is gray, thickened at the bottom. On a fresh break, the mushroom becomes covered with a dark, bluish coating. The very names of boletus and boletus indicate under which trees you should look for them.

Boletus mushrooms are considered valuable mushrooms, growing in groups under pine and spruce trees and, less commonly, under other trees. The oiler cap has the shape of a round pillow and is slightly pointed in the center. It is yellowish-brown on top, covered with a layer of mucus in wet weather, and shiny in dry weather. The bottom of the cap is light yellow. All these mushrooms can be boiled, fried, pickled, or dried. Of the edible mushrooms with plates on the underside of the cap, milk mushroom, saffron milk cap and champignon are especially valuable.

The milk mushroom grows in pine and deciduous forests. He's all white. His hat has the shape of a funnel with the edges turned down. Fringe hangs from the edges of the hat. Milk mushrooms are good when salted. But they contain a bitter milky juice, visible when the mushroom is broken. Therefore, milk mushrooms are usually soaked before salting.

Camelina is found under pine, larch and dark spruce forests. The cap of a young mushroom is slightly convex, while that of an old one takes the shape of a funnel; on top it is bright orange (in the forest) or bluish-green (under spruce), on the bottom it is orange with green spots. When the mushroom is broken, juice is released orange color. Ryzhiki are salted, pickled and fried.

Champignon, or pecheritsa, is found in the steppe, meadows, near housing and in forests middle zone. Champignon is bred in artificial conditions. In greenhouses, crops are harvested even in winter. Champignon culture is widespread in many countries, especially in France. The cap of the champignon is white, almost spherical in a young mushroom, and flat-round in a mature one. The plates on its underside are pinkish. This mushroom is most often eaten fried, but you can also pickle it. Most edible mushrooms end their development above the soil surface. But champignons, for example, sometimes have to be dug out from under a mound of earth.

Champignon can easily be confused with the very poisonous toadstool. It differs from the champignon in the sheath at the base of the stem and the color of the plates on the underside of the cap. In the pale toadstool these plates are white, in the champignon they are initially pale pink, then darken and finally become dark brown.

Mushrooms with plates on their caps include the extremely poisonous, well-known red and gray fly agaric mushrooms. A decoction is prepared from red fly agaric mushrooms, which is used to poison flies. It should be remembered that even the best and most certainly edible mushroom, if it has begun to rot on the vine or has been left untreated for a long time after being collected, can become poisonous: it produces decomposition products that can cause poisoning.

K definitely edible mushrooms with lamellae on caps growing in our forests include chanterelles, waveworts, green, pink and red russulas. U interesting mushroom puffball spores on stalks are formed inside the fruiting body. When they ripen, the fruiting body bursts and dust (spores) comes out of it. Therefore, this mushroom is also called grandfather’s tobacco. Young puffball fruiting bodies are edible.

Fungi that form spores in bags include morels and strings (their bags are placed in recesses on the surface of the cap) and truffles (their bags lie inside the fruiting bodies formed underground). Different kinds morel mushrooms grow in early spring, as soon as the snow melts, in forests, parks and the steppe. These are morels - with a light brown cellular conical cap on a short stem, caps - with a light brown cap in the form of a truncated cone hanging on a long hollow stem, and lines - with a brain-shaped, sinuous dark brown cap on a short thick hollow stem. All these mushrooms are edible. But they contain toxic substances that dissolve in boiling water. Therefore, before eating, these mushrooms must be finely chopped and boiled, and the broth should be poured out: it is poisonous.

Truffles grow in beech and oak forests Western Europe. They are highly prized in Western European cooking, especially in France. The fruiting bodies of truffles are not always definite, but more or less spherical in shape with almost black flesh. In our country, they are found in the western, southwestern and central regions of the European part. Determine where they grow and organize collection - interesting activity for young people.

The fruiting bodies of truffles are located at a depth of 10-30 cm below the soil surface, leaving no trace on it. Dogs or pigs with a good sense of smell are usually used to search for them. And when the animal finds a fragrant mushroom and points to the right place, the truffle is dug up with a shovel. When collecting mushrooms, you need to learn how to distinguish edible from inedible and poisonous ones.

It must be said that some mushrooms, considered inedible in some countries and places,... others are collected and eaten. But many of these mushrooms require pre-treatment - soaking in salt water, boiling. Therefore, if it is not known whether a mushroom is edible or not, it is better not to put it in the basket. It is recommended to pick mushrooms early in the morning. Mushrooms should not be pulled out, but cut with a knife in order to protect the mycelium from damage, from which new mushrooms will grow. The mushroom picker's basket must be firm so that the mushrooms do not break.

Illustration copyright Thinkstock

Let them small sizes Don't be fooled: mushrooms are capable of real miracles. The correspondent collected six amazing facts about the life of mushrooms.

Mushrooms gave man alcohol

It is impossible to write an ode to mushrooms without starting with alcohol.

One group of fungi, yeasts, produce energy through fermentation, the byproducts of which are carbon dioxide and alcohol.

For most microorganisms, alcohol is a poison, but yeast has managed to develop tolerance to high degrees in the process of evolution.

Appreciate the rich nutrients Humanity learned to drink drinks that do not contain harmful bacteria approximately 10 thousand years ago, long before the invention of pasteurization and refrigerators. Some scientists, such as biomolecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern, even believe that our ancestors began growing and storing grain crops not because they needed more bread, but for the sake of alcohol.

McGovern is the scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeological Project on Cooking, Fermented Beverages and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in the United States. He discovered that a person developed an obsessive interest in alcohol much earlier than is commonly believed. The scientist sequenced the DNA of yeast from ancient Egyptian wine vessels, which are more than 5 thousand years old (these yeast turned out to be the ancestors of modern fermentation yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae). In China, McGovern found evidence that people were producing alcohol even earlier - more than 9 thousand years ago, that is, long before the invention of the wheel. These were the priorities.

mushroom wind

In addition to producing an insane amount of yeast, mushrooms can cause wind.

In a way, a mushroom is like a fruit hanging on a tree. The mushroom cap is full of spores, like a fruit is full of seeds. However, unlike a tree, most of the fungus is hidden underground. The mycelium forms a network connecting the mushrooms on the surface.

Illustration copyright Thinkstock Image caption Mold is also a mushroom

Mushrooms need their spores to fly as far as possible; then the offspring will not compete with their “parents” for nutritional resources. At the same time, mushrooms cannot count on the help of animals when traveling long distances. They have to rely on themselves and use available resources. The main one is water.

When it's time to spray their spores, the mushrooms release water vapor, thereby cooling the air around them. Air currents create a lifting force that can carry spores up to 10 centimeters in all directions.

Mushrooms create zombies

The wind is something else. Some mushrooms can create a real walking nightmare.

Fungi of the species Ophiocodyceps living in tropical forests, settle in the brains of carpenter ants. The Thai mushroom Ophiocordyceps unilateralis causes the ant to make chaotic movements, causing the insect to fall from the foliage to the ground. After this, the mushroom tells the ant to climb the tree trunk to a height of a little less than a meter - that is, to where ideal conditions in temperature and humidity are created for the growth of the fungus.

It controls not only the height to which the ant rises, but also the direction - usually north-northwest. Ants usually do not chew leaves from a tree, but insects infected with fungi begin to chew on them. Moreover, zombie ants begin to eat leaves at exactly noon - a fact worthy of science fiction.

In this unusual position, the ant dies. In rigor mortis, the insect's jaws continue to clench the leaf as the ant's muscles atrophy due to the fungus growing through the head. The body remains in this position for up to two weeks. The mushroom, meanwhile, is preparing to reproduce. Finally, he showers healthy ants with his spores, which, suspecting nothing, continue to get food to take it to their nests in the tree crown.

The cycle of zombification repeats.

This type of mushroom has honed its zombification skills to the highest level. It has inspired movies and video games, and sparked a crowdfunding campaign to find the genes that control the ant.

Who doesn't love zombie stories?

Mushrooms are faster than bullets

When it comes to the speed of releasing offspring from the house, mushrooms have no equal among living organisms.

Spores of the dung fungus Pilobolus crystallinus fly faster than bullets and any living organisms on our planet.

In appearance, Pilobolus does not look like an ordinary mushroom. It resembles a tiny transparent snake with a bowler hat on its head. This cap is a bag of spores, and the mushroom knows how to shoot it, and maximum speed The movement of the spore bag can reach 25 meters per second, and the acceleration is 1.7 million meters per second squared. For comparison, American rocket The Saturn 5, which was used to launch the second lunar mission, Apollo 8, accelerated no faster than 40 meters per second squared.

Illustration copyright Jason Hollinger CC by 2.0 Image caption This mushroom has 28 thousand gender variants

It is not surprising that in the English-speaking world this mushroom is called "hat-drop".

If you want to compare this dung cannon with firearms, we bring to your attention a wonderful plot Earth Unplugged programs.

Spoiler: yes, Pilobolus spores fly faster than bullets and pellets.

28 thousand gender options

Now we will console everyone who has ever desperately tried to find the love of their life in a sea of ​​mediocre options. Things would be much worse if you were a slit mushroom looking for your soul mate.

Yes, some mushrooms are no different in sexual fantasy. Yeast has only two sexes, which are determined by sex genes - let's call them type 1 and type 2. Yeast of the first type can interbreed with yeast of the second, that is, with half of the entire yeast civilization.

The disadvantage of this arrangement is that the individual is sexually compatible with his brothers or sisters. If there are no other mushrooms nearby, then they can produce offspring - but the offspring from such a union will not be genetically diverse enough.

The largest living organism on Earth is the mycelium

Finally, nothing living can compare with mushrooms in size. IN American state Oregon has a honey fungus that extends over 10 square kilometers. Its age is from 1900 to 8650 years. However, despite its truly gigantic size, the mushroom was discovered only in the 21st century.

We see the mushrooms themselves only when it is time to reproduce. If mushrooms didn't grow sex life, we might not even suspect their existence.

Scientists were able to find out that the mycelium is capable of reaching so much gigantic size, only with the advent of DNA sequencing technology. After analyzing DNA samples of mushrooms in the area, scientists realized that all honey mushrooms are genetically identical.

Using the same method, researchers began to study colonies of microscopic fungi that live in soil and water, in plants and animals, and even in the air itself. The speed with which experts are discovering new species of mushrooms has forced them to evaluate total There are more than five million of these species on Earth.

What other incredible feats are mushrooms not yet known to us capable of?