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The sporocarp (also known as fruiting body, fruit body or fruitbody) of fungi is a multicellular structure on which spore-producing structures, such as basidia or asci, are borne. The fruitbody is part of the sexual phase of a fungal life cycle , [ 1 ] while the rest of the life cycle is characterized by vegetative mycelial growth and asexual ...
Mycelium (pl.: mycelia) [a] is a root-like structure of a fungus consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. [1] Its normal form is that of branched, slender, entangled, anastomosing, hyaline threads. [2] Fungal colonies composed of mycelium are found in and on soil and many other substrates.
The English word fungus is directly adopted from the Latin fungus (mushroom), used in the writings of Horace and Pliny. [10] This in turn is derived from the Greek word sphongos (σφόγγος 'sponge'), which refers to the macroscopic structures and morphology of mushrooms and molds; [11] the root is also used in other languages, such as the German Schwamm ('sponge') and Schimmel ('mold').
The largest identified fungal fruit body in the world is a specimen of Phellinus ellipsoideus (formerly Fomitiporia ellipsoidea). The species was discovered in 2008 by Bao-Kai Cui and Yu-Cheng Dai in Fujian Province, China. In 2011, the two of them published details of extremely large fruit body of the species that they had found on Hainan ...
In fact dimitic fungi almost always contain generative and skeletal hyphae; there is one exceptional genus, Laetiporus that includes only generative and binding hyphae. Skeletal and binding hyphae give leathery and woody fungi such as polypores their tough consistency. If a fungus contains all three types (example: Trametes), it is called trimitic.
"Mushroom" has been used for polypores, puffballs, jelly fungi, coral fungi, bracket fungi, stinkhorns, and cup fungi. Thus, the term is more one of common application to macroscopic fungal fruiting bodies than one having precise taxonomic meaning.
Fungal spores are often produced on specialized structures or in fruiting bodies, such as the head of a mushroom. Abundant worldwide, most fungi are mostly invisible to the naked eye because of the small size of their structures, and their cryptic lifestyles in soil, on dead matter, and as symbionts of plants, animals, or other fungi.
Polypores are also called bracket fungi or shelf fungi, and they characteristically produce woody, shelf- or bracket-shaped or occasionally circular fruiting bodies that are called conks. [1] Over one thousand polypore species have been described to science, [ 2 ] but a large part of the diversity is still unknown even in relatively well ...