Fungi is the name we give to a group of organisms (an organism is any living thing such as a plant or animal). Types of fungi include mushrooms and toadstools, most moulds, lichen, and thousands of other strange things. In fact they're so different from any other living things that they are given their own kingdom. There are more varieites of fungus in Europe than birds in the whole world.
Fungi are some of the biggest organisms on this planet. The part you see above the ground is only the fruit of this organism. Underneath the ground is a tiny web of threads called mycelium which make up the main part of the fungi. The mycelium can cover thousands of acres. The biggest fungus in the world is thought to cover the area of 1,665 football pitches and to be 2,200 years old!
Fungi range in colour from brilliant reds, yellows and oranges (like the elf cup fungi in the picture) to dull colours such as blacks, browns and greys. They can be hard, soft, jelly like, dusty, smooth or spiky. When you were looking for fungi in your WildSquare survey you were asked to look underneath the top of the cap shaped fungi to see if they had gills or pores, these are the parts of the fungi that produce spores. Spores are a bit like seeds, they are microscopic copies of the fungus that get spread far and wide to turn into new fungi. One type of fungi called a puffball has a small hole in the top, if the fungi is disturbed by the wind, rain or an animal brushing past it, it releases a puff of spores into the air which is visible to the naked eye. One puffball fungus can release up to seven trillion spores. If they all grew, they would cover the earth.
Please remember to be careful when you’re out looking at fungi, most is perfectly safe but some types are deadly poisonous and it’s often very difficult to know which are safe and which are poisonous.