Description

A mushroom (or toadstool) is the fleshy,spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced aboveground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name"mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricusbisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to thosefungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), acap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) or pores on theunderside of the cap. These pores or gills produce microscopicspores that help the fungus spread across the ground or itsoccupant surface.

"Mushroom" describes a variety of gilled fungi, with or withoutstems, and the term is used even more generally, to describe boththe fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota and the woody orleathery fruiting bodies of some Basidiomycota, depending upon thecontext of the word.

Forms deviating from the standard morphology usually have morespecific names, such as "puffball", "stinkhorn", and "morel", andgilled mushrooms themselves are often called "agarics" in referenceto their similarity to Agaricus or their place Agaricales. Byextension, the term "mushroom" can also designate the entire funguswhen in culture; the thallus (called a mycelium) of species formingthe fruiting bodies called mushrooms; or the species itself.