Mushrooms & Foraging Trivia

A mushroom is only the visible tip of a much larger organism. Most of a fungus lives underground or inside wood as a fine web of threads, and the mushroom is just the part that shows up to release spores.

This quiz covers fungal biology and a few of the identification basics that foragers rely on.

What a Mushroom Actually Is

The part you see is doing one job: reproduction.

• The mushroom is the fruiting body of the fungus, comparable to an apple on a tree.
• The main body of the fungus is the mycelium, a network of thread-like strands.
• Spores are released from the underside of the cap, from gills or from pores.
• Fungi are actually more closely related to animals than to plants.

Foraging Basics

Identification is careful work, because some lookalikes are deadly.

• A spore print, made by resting a cap on paper, reveals spore color as an ID clue.
• The death cap is responsible for most fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide.
• Chanterelles are typically yellow to orange and prized by cooks.
• Morels have a distinctive pitted, honeycomb-textured cap.