Mycelium is a mass of branching threadlike

strands that form part of a fungus; it is the

part that can explore and look for nutrients.

If you cultivate a mushroom in a petri bowl on Agar Agar as in the picture opposite the actual "shape" of the mushroom becomes visible and you can see how the fruiting body (or mushroom) is just a small part of a much larger network of mycelium threads – rather like the way an apple is just the fruit of a much larger tree

Mycelium helps heal ecosystems. Every step

you take on a lawn, field or forest will contain

mycelium in the soil underneath your feet

The Wood Wide Web

The wood wide web is another name for a mycelium network, which can act similarly to the Internet, connecting the forest and helping to pass information and nutrients to the trees and plants. Up to 90%

of land plants are connected to some form of

mycelium network

Mycelium ~ Nature's Magic

What’s so wonderful about mycelium is that this miraculous substance has the ability to help save the planet, and us, by offering a solution to lots of the world’s problems – from cleaning up oil spills and toxic waste to solving antibiotic resistance, helping the threatened bee population and creating packaging that actually improves the soil when it’s thrown away.

Mycelium can even help break down and replace plastics, so that in the future it may be possible to grow all the items we need, from furniture to phone cases. It can even produce a leather substitute that is stronger and softer than deerskin!

FUNgi Facts

Fungi were the first colonisers of the planet, one billion years before the introduction of plants, where they thrived in vast mushroom forests.

Possibly the largest organism alive in the world today is a web of mycelium fungus. It stretches across 2,384 acres of forest in eastern Oregon in the USA…that’s as big as 1,665 football fields! It’s estimated to be 2,400 years old, so it’s also one of the planet’s oldest living organisms.

Some mushrooms glow in the dark; they are known as

bioluminescent and use their strange, eerie green glow to attract flies and insects to help spread their spores.

Some mushrooms can ‘hear’ underground by using their mycelium web to sense vibrations from above ground, giving them a better chance of finding food and spreading spores by allowing them to send up

fruiting bodies (mushrooms) close to animal tracks and pathways.