Mushrooms are generally regarded as plants. After all, you can find them at the vegetable stand between cabbage and lettuce, and they grow in the ground like plants. However, their classification as plants is not entirely correct, as they have no real roots, no leaves and, even more importantly, fungi have no leaf green (chlorophyll).

They are therefore not plants, not animals, not bacteria, but form the independent kingdom of fungi.

Mushrooms have always been a mystery to mankind. In 1795, the botanist Jean-Jacques Paulet coined the term "mycology", the study of fungi. Mycologists distinguish between microscopically small fungi (micromycetes), such as molds, and higher fungi, the so-called macromycetes, to which all edible mushrooms belong. The macromycetes in turn are subdivided into:

Ascomycetes, whose spores grow in tubes called "asci". Well-known representatives are, for example, the morel and the truffle ...

... and basidiomycetes, which include the cap or stand mushrooms. Their spores grow on bottle-shaped cells called "basidia".

As fungi do not produce chlorophyll, they cannot build up organic matter from carbon dioxide and light energy like plants. They have to obtain their food from living or dead plant or animal organisms. They can do this in three ways:

• The symbionts
  Many fungi form a close symbiotic relationship with plant roots, known as mycorrhiza. The fungi absorb organic substances from the plant and in return enable it to better absorb minerals and water from the soil. Example: porcini mushroom, birch mushroom, fly agaric.
• The saprophytes
  Saprophytes feed on dead plant or animal remains. They decompose these together with bacteria and thus return the organic raw materials to the natural cycle. A well-known example: Parasol.
• The parasites
  Parasitic fungi extract nutrients from a host plant. This damages the plant and can cause it to die. Diseased and injured trees are particularly affected. Example: Root rot. However, humans and animals can also be attacked by parasitic fungi. Skin, intestines, lungs and other organs can be affected. Well-known: athlete's foot.

For most of the year, higher fungi live invisibly in the soil as a widely ramified network called "mycelium".

Only for a short period of time do their fruiting bodies appear, which are regarded by the layman as the "actual" mushrooms. To illustrate this, a mushroom can be compared to an apple tree: The mycelium corresponds to the tree, the fruiting bodies to the apples.

At the beginning, the fruiting body is just a small round ball. However, everything is already in the right place in this sphere: the lamellae (in the case of the lamellar fungus), the cap and the base.

Fungi can reproduce asexually and sexually. Only the latter can give rise to fruiting bodies. The process can be described in simple terms as follows: Millions of spores are released from the underside of the cap. In the case of the meadow mushroom, this can be up to 40 million per hour. The wind carries them over long distances until they fall to the ground. If this is favorable, the spores can germinate, provided the humidity and temperature are right. Now a fungal thread (hyphe) is formed from single-nucleated cells arranged in a row. By branching, these form a network of hyphae, the primary mycelium. However, this cannot yet form a fruiting body. To do so, it must first fuse with another primary mycelium of the same species with different sexes. This gives rise to the secondary mycelium, whose cells now each contain two nuclei. Under favorable environmental conditions, fruiting bodies can develop from this.