The mushrooms on the slice of pizza given to me covered the hot, oozing cheese and tomato sauce like a blanket covering a bed. They may not have looked very appetizing, but the flavor they produced was delicious! I really enjoy a good serving of mushrooms, whether on a slice of pizza, mixed in a fresh salad or stuffed with crab meat-yum, yum!

Mushrooms are a type of fungi. They’re not classified as plants. The major difference between them is that plants can make their own food, fungi cannot. Plants use sunlight, carbon dioxide and water and to produce their food. Fungi feed off decomposing matter, or act as a parasite to a host. The other difference is that fungi reproduce from spores, whereas plants reproduce through seeds and pollen. Plants produce biomass, but without fungi around to decompose it, all that biomass would build up over time-literally piling up all over our planet! Other types of fungi include molds and yeasts.

When it comes to mushrooms, however, they’re generally referred to as a type of fungus that has a fleshy body comprised of a stem, a cap, and gills (on the underside of the cap). Approximately 14,000 species have been identified by scientists throughout the world. Even the word mushroom itself has become part of our everyday English language, being used to describe something that as “mushroomed, or “expanded.” Most likely this is due to the notion of how mushrooms tend to grow very quickly or even “pop up overnight.”