What is Mushroom and how they become fruit body?

Mushrooms are the fruit body of a fungus and are one of the natures most precious gifts to human beings. The term Mushroom is derived from many languages-1> Latin 'fungo' means to Flourish, i.e. growing out from the ground or from trees. 2> Greeck 'Sphongos' or 'sphoggos' means 'sponge' i.e species having sponge like structure and 3> French mousseron 'mousse or moss'.

Mushroom has got different names in different languages, viz. 'Ksumpa' in Sanskrit; Khumbi for button mushroom in hindi , 'Dhingri' for oyster mushroom in hindi; other words in Sanskrit or Chatra for the fleshy capped fungi, Bhoomicavak, kavaka, Bhustma and Kururmutta.

Mushrooms belongs to a separate group of organisms called fungi {Fungus}they lack the usual green matter{Chlorophyll} present in plants and grows on dead and decaying organic materials. From these decaying substrates, they absorb their nutrition's with the help of very fine thread structures {Mycelium}which penetrates into the  substratum and generally not visible on the surface. After the mycelium has grown profusely and absorbed sufficient food materials; it forms the productive structure which generally comes out of the substrate and forms a fruiting body may be umbrella like or of various  other shapes, sizes and color. Commonly it consists of a cup or volva, performing various functions in the most important functions and productive millions of minute "seeds" {spore} of mushrooms which under favorable conditions germinate on suitable substrate and give rise to a new mushroom mycelium, which after mating with other compatible mycelium, or self-mating, produces the fruiting bodies to complete the life cycle.

Mushroom in nature are generally found to grow in places where dead remains of plants, such as leave, straw, logs etc. are decaying; hence in forest fields and meadows grow in abundance. However all mushrooms are not edible some are highly poisonous too.

Mushroom is the most important cash crops grown indoors, as compared to other traditional crops grown outdoors. Mushrooms is the only non green crop grown for commerce with attractive profits. As i earlier mentioned that mushroom is the fruit body of a fungus, which is neither a plant nor an animal, but having a separate kingdom of its own. Fungi have some characteristics of plants, some of animals and some its own when we look at its biology, physiology and phylogeny.

Amarjeet Kumar
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