Many a person has been amazed to find toadstools or mushrooms decorating a place where only yesterday there had been nothing. Maybe that has something to do with the name of "fairy ring" for the common circular arrangement of groups of toadstools. After all, what other than fairy magic could explain the sudden appearance? It turns out that all of the magic resides in the fungi themselves. Now keep in mind that the toadstool that we see is a fruiting body of a fungus and that most of the organism is underground.
Now, we're use to plants, where new cells are constantly being
added to the tips of shoots and then enlarging as new cells continue to be formed. Not
surprisingly, this takes awhile. The toadstools, however, plan ahead, so to speak. It
seems that the cells are produced beforehand. Rather than having to manufacture cells
as growth proceeds, it's basically a matter of pumping them up—a process so fast,
that many a person's small error, ultimately producing a disaster, has been said to
have mushroomed!
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Be aware that even though we've placed this under "Plants", fungi are in a kingdom all of their own, and they are considered to be more closely related to animals than to plants.