Fungi are not plants. They are not animals. They are something older, stranger, and more fundamental than either.
They decompose the dead, feed the living, produce our medicines, ferment our food, and connect forests through networks we are only beginning to understand. There are an estimated 2–6 million species on Earth. We have formally described around 150,000.
"The earth's soil is largely made of fungal bodies. You are almost certainly walking on fungi right now."
This site is an attempt to make sense of the ones we do know — how they work, where they came from, who studies them, and how to grow them yourself.
Ten facts to start with
01 — Fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Both have chitin in their cell walls and store energy as glycogen.
02 — The largest living organism on Earth is a fungus — an Armillaria in Oregon covering 9.6 square kilometres, estimated at up to 8,650 years old.
03 — Fungi were among the first organisms to colonise dry land, roughly 1.3 billion years ago — long before plants or animals.
04 — 90% of land plants depend on mycorrhizal fungal partnerships. Without fungi, most terrestrial plant life couldn't survive.
05 — Penicillin, statins, and cyclosporin — the immunosuppressant that makes organ transplants possible — all come from fungi.
06 — Certain fungi found growing inside the Chernobyl reactor appear to use melanin to convert gamma radiation into chemical energy.
07 — A single mushroom can release 30,000 spores per second over several days — billions in total.
08 — Several fungal species can break down polyurethane plastic. Mycoremediation is a developing field.
09 — Fungi have thousands of mating types. Schizophyllum commune has an estimated 23,000.
10 — We have formally described less than 10% of estimated fungal species.
