The Largest Living Organism On Earth - It Is A Mushroom - Alternative View

The Largest Living Organism On Earth - It Is A Mushroom - Alternative View
The Largest Living Organism On Earth - It Is A Mushroom - Alternative View

Video: The Largest Living Organism On Earth - It Is A Mushroom - Alternative View

Video: The Largest Living Organism On Earth - It Is A Mushroom - Alternative View
Video: The Biggest Organism On Earth 2024, July
Anonim

And not even some particularly rare one. On the stumps you have probably seen colonies of common honey agarics (Armillaria ostoyae) more than once.

For your sake, let's hope they don't reach the size of the largest officially registered specimen. Growing in the Malur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon, the record-breaking honey mushroom covers an area of 890 hectares and is between two and eight thousand years old. Most of it is hidden from view and is located underground in the form of a massive bed of tendril-like white mycelium (mycelia) (the mushroom equivalent of roots). The mycelium entangles tree roots, causing general death of trees, and only occasionally breaks through the soil in the form of harmless small deposits of golden fungi.

Initially, it was believed that the giant mushroom from Oregon are separate clusters growing throughout the forest, but not so long ago, scientists came to a consensus: we are dealing with the world's largest integral organism, connecting underground.