Fruitbody Structure


Well, just to make sure that everything on this site is of my own creation, I decided to do my own drawings and diagrams and since I don't have time to learn computer graphics I draw then scan them!!

 The drawing on the right  shows a mushroom fruit body with most of the features you will find on a mushroom growing in the wild. However, not all mushrooms have all features:

The Cap: Can be shaped differently depending on the species and the stage of growth. It can be conical, flat, conical or even spherical. The surface could be smooth, hairy or carry scab like fragments which are usually remnants of a universal veil if one was present.

The Gills: May not even be present, instead there can be a spongy pore layer, (Tubes packed closely together giving the appearance of a sponge) or the lower surface of the cap could be smooth with no gills or pores but in some mushrooms this layer can be wrinkled or veined. This lower surface of the cap is usually where the spores are produced, carried and dispersed.

The stem: Some mushrooms do not have a stem, but when they do it could be just like the one above. This one has a ring on the stem which is in fact the remainder of a veil or cover that protects the gills when young and as the cap expands or grows this veil ruptures leaving a ring on the stem which could be very obvious or barely visible. In some mushrooms you can see left over fragments of the veil on the edge of the cap too. Some mushrooms have  a cup like structure at the base of the stem which is the remainder of what is called a universal veil which completely surrounds the whole mushroom when young and occasionally you will see some left over fragments of this on the top surface of the cap.  

The fruit body above represents one of the more complex Fruit body structures, mushrooms looking like this belong to the famous Amanita group, like the one on the link buttons on some of the pages of the site. Variations to this structure are numerous, the veils can be present or absent and when present they can look different. The position of the ring on the stalk can be lower or higher, solid and persistent or fragile and even cobwebby in structure.

Mushroom Life Cycle

Well, this is it!!! The mushroom life cycle simplified!!
It all starts when the spores are released from the gills (or which ever surface the mushroom happens to carry the spores on).
Millions of spores are released to the elements, (air, water or animals) and are dispersed  by varying methods, (depending on the kind of mushroom), when the conditions are right the spores germinate sending out tiny threads called the hyphae (single hypha). In order for a hypha to develop and eventually produce a mushroom it has to find another hypha which is compatible with it, to simplify this I have refered to the spores in the diagram as '+' and '-'. When these two compatible hyphae meet, they fuse together to form a network of threads called the mycelium. The mycelium eventually forms what is known as a hyphal knot which grows and develops into a pinhead. In turn the pinhead gradually grows and develops into the full mushroom fruit body ready to disperse new spores!!