A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body (sporocarp or reproductive structure) of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The term "mushroom" also is used to designate the entire fungus with a fruiting body. While the term mushroom is often associated with fungi that have a stem (stipe or stalk), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamella, the papery ribs under the cap of a mushroom), the term can refer to a wide variety of gilled fungi with or without stems and more generally any fruiting body. Mushrooms provide culinary, commercial, aesthetic, and ecological values. Since prehistoric times, people have consumed them. Edible varieties can be flavorful and provide B vitamins and minerals such as potassium, phosphorus, selenium, and iron; but mushrooms do not have many calories. Mushroom growing and sales have been an important industry, and the diverse forms and colors of mushrooms add to the wondrous nature for humans. Ecologically, various animals, such as rodents and birds, eat mushrooms, this makes mushrooms an important source of nutrition and energy in terrestrial food chains.

On the other hand, many species of mushrooms contain toxins that can cause human sickness or even death. Among the most deadly mushrooms are the destroying angel and the deathcap, members of the genus Amanita, which have killed many mushroom hunters. A fungus is a eukaryotic organism that digests its food externally and absorbs nutrient molecules into its cells. Fungi make up one of the kingdoms into which living things are classified by biologists. Mushrooms are unique because they differ from bacteria, which do not have a cell nucleus; they are not a plant because mushrooms do not make their own food through photosynthesis; and they differ from animals because they are not mobile and do not absorb nutrition externally. Mushrooms are, however, related to other fungi organisms such as, yeasts, molds, and mildews. Fungi may be single-celled or multi-cellular. Multi-cellular fungi are composed of networks of long hollow tubes called hyphae.

The hyphae often gather in dense networks known as mycelium. The mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus, and consists of the mass branching, thread-like hyphae. The mycelium grows through the medium on which the fungus feeds. Because most fungi are embedded in the medium in which they grow, most often soil, they are often not visible. Although fungi lack true organs, the mycelia can become organized into more complex reproductive structures called fruiting bodies, or sporocarps, under the right conditions. The sporocarp or fruiting body is a multi-cellular structure in which spore-producing structures, such as basidia or asci, are borne. The fruiting body is part of the sexual phase of a fungal life cycle, the rest of the life cycle is characterized by its vegetative mycelial growth. The sporocarp of a basidiomycete (club fungi, one of the major divisions of fungi) is known as a basidiocarp, while the fruiting body of an ascomycete (sac fungi) is known as an ascocarp.

Mushroom is the common name given to the fruiting bodies of many fungal species. Although these typically above-ground structures are the most conspicuous to humans, they make up only a small portion of the entire fungal body. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, hence the word mushroom is most often applied to fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the underside of the cap just as do store-bought white mushrooms. Stipe refers to the stem or stalk-like feature supporting the cap of a mushroom. The pileus is the technical name for what is commonly known as the cap of a fungal fruiting body, which is often umbrella shaped, but may take many forms. A gill or lamella is one of the papery ribs under the cap of a mushroom. However, "mushroom" can also refer to a wide variety of gilled fungi, with or without stems, and the term is used even more generally to describe both the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota and the woody or leathery fruiting bodies of some Basidiomycota, depending upon the context of the word.

Forms deviating from the standard form usually have more specific names, such as "puffball," "stinkhorn," and "morel," and gilled mushrooms themselves are often called "agarics" in reference to their similarity to Agaricus or their placement in the order Agaricales. By extension, "mushroom" can also designate the entire fungus when in culture or the thallus (called a mycelium) of species that form the fruiting bodies called mushrooms. If you cherished this article therefore you would like to be given more info regarding manufacturer of shiitake mushroom extract powder for cosmetic Ingredients kindly visit our own website. The terms "mushroom" and "toadstool" date back centuries and were never precisely defined, nor was there consensus on its application. There is no scientific distinction between these terms. The term "toadstool" has often but not exclusively been applied to poisonous or inedible mushrooms, but has also been applied to those mushrooms that are edible and have the classic umbrella-like cap-and-stem form. Between 1400 and 1600 C.E., the terms tadstoles, frogstooles, frogge stoles, tadstooles, tode stoles, toodys hatte, paddockstool, puddockstool, paddocstol, toadstoole, and paddockstooles were sometimes used synonymously with mushrom, mushrum, muscheron, mousheroms, mussheron, or musserouns (Ramsbottom 1954). The term "mushroom" and its variations may have been derived from the French word mousseron in reference to moss (mousse).