Mushrooms are a lot like plants, but they lack chlorophyll and have to take nutrients from other materials. Mushrooms are neither plants nor animals. They constitute their own kingdom: the Fungi. These include the familiar mushroom-forming species, as well as yeasts, molds, smuts, and rusts.
Few of us see the entire life cycle of mushrooms, since most of it takes place underground or beneath the bark of dead or living trees. Before developing the mushroom structure, the fungus lives as a mycelium, a matlike or netlike network of filaments infusing a patch of soil or wood.
When conditions are right, the mycelium develops a fruiting structure, a mushroom, which emerges from the ground or the tree. Instead of seeds, mushrooms produce spores, which are almost as fine as smoke. When spores land in a suitable place, they germinate, developing the fine filaments that eventually become a new mycelium.
Mushrooms usually don’t last very long. Once they’ve shed their spores, they collapse and deteriorate. Some, such as turkey tails, however, last much longer.
