It is now known by scientists that long before Trees took over the landscape of earth, ‘mushrooms’ were everywhere. Researchers discovered that Plants evolved on earth around 700 million years ago whereas land fungi was there about 1,300 million years ago. Surprisingly enough, the largest known living organism on earth is a 2.4 miles (3.8 km) wide honey fungus in Blue Mountains in Oregon.
The word mycelium literally means “more than one”, which is a plural of the word Mycelia. Mycelium refers to the thread-like body of a fungus, which his the vegetative part, consisting of network of fine white filaments (hyphae). The main part of the fungus is the mycelia, which lives inside the substrate (wood, straw grain, etc). The mushrooms eaten are only a small visible part of the organism Fungus.
Fungus is capable of producing much more – from plastics, to plant-based meat, to even scaffolding for growing organs for animals.
What is Mycelium – digging deep
Mycelium are masses of hypha, which are also known as Shiro. Hyphae are mass of interwoven single-cell wide structures which are germinated by spores. Fungus reproduce, unlike Plants, by spores – and just as an apple is a fruit of the tree, the Fungi’s fruit is the Mushroom, through which the Fungi reproduces, procreates.
References
- https://thegreentemple.net/articles/mycelium-the-future-is-fungi
