Mycelial Mat Honey Mushroom

The largest organism on earth is a fungus.

Mycelial mat honey mushroom.

The largest known organism of the species armillaria ostoyae covers more than 3 4 square miles 8. A mushroom extract fed to honey bees greatly reduces virus levels according to a new paper. In fact the largest organism on earth is a mycelial mat of a honey mushroom in eastern oregon that is 890 hectares in size and over 2 000 years old. Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus or fungus like bacterial colony consisting of a mass of branching thread like hyphae the mass of hyphae is sometimes called shiro especially within the fairy ring fungi.

More precisely a specific honey fungus measuring 2 4 miles 3 8 km across in the blue mountains in oregon is thought to be the largest living organism on earth. These mycelial mats grow easily on just about any organic material. Armillarias are long lived and form some of the largest living organisms in the world. When wondering what is mycelium one must learn about the importance of the role mycelium plays in mycology plant pathology and mushroom cultivation.

The blue whale is big but nowhere near as huge as a sprawling fungus in eastern oregon. It is important to reiterate that just as a mushroom is not mycelium mycelium is also not a. Armillaria is a genus of parasitic fungi that includes the a. The cells will eventually branch and continue to branch as it grows to build a vast filamentous mycelial network.

But oregon s is the largest ever measured. Armillaria ostoyae is common on both hardwood and conifer wood in forests west of the cascade range in oregon united states. Mycelial networks can live for hundreds if not thousands of years and spread across vast distances. Fungal colonies composed of mycelium are found in and on soil and many other substrates a typical single spore germinates into a monokaryotic mycelium which cannot reproduce.

Instead it s made from a mat of mycelium the underlying threadlike root networks from which fruiting bodies pop up after a rain. Mellea species known as honey fungi that live on trees and woody shrubs. Armillaria ostoyae synonym armillaria solidipes is a species of plant pathogenic fungus in the family physalacriaceae it is the most common variant in the western united states of the group of species under the name armillaria mellea. It includes about 10 species formerly categorized summarily as a.