The largest edible mushroom in the world. The largest mushrooms in the world: Photo of large mushrooms and myceliums Mushroom raincoat is the largest
Scientists consider mushrooms to be the most diverse living creatures on our planet. There are so many of them that for each type of plant there are 6 species of mushrooms, with the most approximate calculation, it turns out that there are about 2 million species of mushrooms. They can be predators, move around, treat diseases...
At the same time, only 100 thousand have been studied, and even fewer have been classified.
fungi are a kingdom in their own right.
The long debate about what fungi are: plants or animals ended in 1960, when they were separated into a separate fungal kingdom. In terms of protein content, mushrooms are closer to animals, and in terms of the composition of carbohydrates and minerals, they are closer to plants.
most of the fungus is not visible to us.
The body of the fungus is a mycelium located in the ground. It can extend over great distances. And the fungus itself is a fruit intended for the implementation of the breeding program.
fungi are older than dinosaurs.
The fact that mushrooms existed 400 million years ago, that is, long before the advent of dinosaurs, has been proven. They are one of the oldest inhabitants of the planet, along with ferns. But if the giant ferns, preserved from the same period, were significantly crushed, then the fungi, adapting, changed and, it seems, all these species still exist.
mushrooms are very durable.
If mushrooms were less tenacious, they would not have retained their diversity. How tenacious they are can be imagined by anyone who has ever had a fungal infection or struggled with a fungal infection of the walls. It is extremely difficult to remove the fungus. Still would! Mushrooms survive at an altitude of 30 thousand meters above the ground, withstand high radiation (in the center of the Chernobyl accident, mushrooms survived) and a pressure of 8 atmospheres. They can even live on the surface of sulfuric acid!
mushrooms burn.
Surprisingly, mushrooms produce vitamin D, if, of course, they have enough sunlight. The color of the mushroom cap depends on this.
mushrooms move.
Not all, of course. Now only myxomycetes are classified as "walking" mushrooms. You can find them in central Russia. This mushroom has no legs and in its appearance resembles a shriveled jellyfish. It is translucent and gelatinous. Moves by rolling from side to side. The speed is low, but it can get to a more suitable place in a few days, sometimes it even climbs onto a stump.
mushroom grows at the speed of bamboo.
In Russian forests, you can find a mushroom called Vesyolka, which is included in the Guinness Book of Records as a record holder for growth rate. Every 2 minutes it grows by a centimeter! On the first day it looks like a grayish egg, on the second it becomes an umbrella on a high leg, and on the third it is no longer visible.
mushroom is the biggest creature on the ground.
Don't believe? Very big porcini found in America (Wisconsin) in 1985. It weighed 140 kg and had a coverage of two meters. But, as we remember, this is only the visible part. A mycelium found in Oregon covers an area of 900 hectares and weighs several hundred tons! But in Switzerland, a mushroom was discovered at the age of about 1000 years - honey agaric. Its mycelium occupies 35 hectares of the area of the Swiss national park, Offenpass.
mushrooms are predators and killers.
Fungi feed on nematode worms, placing traps on them from mycelium rings. If the worm touches such a trap, it sticks to it and immediately becomes entangled in the threads of the mycelium. There is no chance to escape. Fungal spores can germinate inside living things. But if a person gets sick, then the caterpillar, for example, dies. And the fungus grows. One small pale grebe is enough to kill 4 people. But fly agarics will need a few pieces. Strong poisons were prepared from mushrooms and actively used to eliminate opponents. Emperor Claudius was poisoned by his wife Agrippina, who cooked soup from a pale toadstool.
mushrooms are healers.
Mushrooms have been used since ancient times as medicines. And now, in many homes, “tea” or “milk” mushroom grows in jars, a drink from which improves immunity and fights inflammatory diseases. In 1940, A. Flemming isolated penicillin from yeast fungi, opening the era of antibiotics. healing properties have champignons, purple rows, meadow and autumn mushrooms, milkman, chaga. And the skin of raincoats is used instead of adhesive tape - its inner part is sterile and has bactericidal properties.
most Russians eat mushrooms.
Half of the inhabitants of Russia collect mushrooms for food on their own. Every fifth buys them on the market. 16% - in the store. 14% of Russians have never eaten mushrooms and do not plan to do so.
mushrooms are a valuable nutritious product.
Mushrooms are a source of protein and, to a lesser extent, carbohydrates, while they do not contain cholesterol at all. By the way, precisely because mushrooms do not contain animal saturated fats, they cannot be classified as animals. In addition to protein and carbohydrates, mushrooms are rich in vitamins B1, B2, D, selenium, potassium and antioxidants.
mushrooms are hallucinogens.
Many mushrooms contain substances that cause a state of euphoria and hallucinations. Ancient shamans and Vikings knew this. Shamans used this property of mushrooms for rituals, and the Vikings used it to give themselves courage and attack the enemy with all fearlessness and power.
billions of fungal spores fly through the air.
Fungi reproduce by spores. By taking air samples in almost any room, you can detect fungal spores. If we talk about traditional mushrooms, then ordinary champignon throws up to 40 million spores! Dung fungus - 100 million spores. The record holder is the raincoat mushroom, which throws out more than seven trillion spores! In this case, the spores are thrown over a distance of more than two meters and they fly at the speed of a car: 90 km / h or 25 meters per second.
the fungus can "pierce" the marble.
During the growth period, the pressure of the fungus reaches seven atmospheres (equal to the pressure in the tires of a dump truck). Therefore, a seemingly soft mushroom cap can break through not only asphalt and concrete, but also harder surfaces such as marble and iron. If the cap itself does not pass, then the mycelium will gradually destroy the barrier.
mushrooms above trees.
Such mushrooms grow in the tundra. The trees there are dwarf, 20-25 cm high and bend down to the ground. And mushrooms are standard, so they rise above the crowns of trees. It is interesting that they grow up almost at one moment, in a hurry to have time to start disputes during the period short summer, and the view is very spectacular. Most of all, this period pleases deer, who are happy to eat the hats of these mushrooms.
mushrooms glow in the dark.
Some mushrooms have luminous mycelium. For example, autumn honey agarics growing on rotten stumps. At the same time, the mycelium penetrates the stump thickly. In the dark, you can see how the rotten glow - phosphorescent. This spectacle used to frighten people very much, who immediately populated the forest with witches and goblins. Interestingly, the flickering of such lights resembles the movement of living beings, as it changes with every tilt, every turn of the head.
mushrooms ladies and gentlemen.
It turns out that mushrooms are divided into male and female individuals. This is evidenced by the structure of fungal DNA, which resembles human sex chromosomes. This was reported by Joseph Heitman, who studies the fungi Phycomyces blakesleeanus in Medical Center Duke University. Sexually mature mushrooms can produce common offspring. Not all mushrooms have similar genes, which means that there are also evolving individuals among mushrooms, and who knows what such evolution will lead to.
mushrooms in legends, traditions and dream books.
It is interesting that in those places where mushrooms grow actively, including in Russia, many legends and legends with the participation of mushrooms are composed. At the same time, mushrooms can be good "Forest Mushroom" and evil: "Witch Mushroom". Mushrooms helped people survive in the forest.
The largest mushrooms in the world
If you ask people around, then almost everyone will answer the question “What is the largest creature on Earth” that blue whale. This is even claimed by some scientists. But they are only partially right. Yes, the blue whale is a big animal. But most great creation living on earth is a mushroom. In addition, it has been on the planet for several thousand years. In fact, mushrooms are amazing creatures nature. They differ from animals in physiology and the lack of the ability to move independently, but from plants in that they do not take energy and carbon from carbon dioxide and sunlight. What's more, fungi tend to have chitin, which is found in invertebrates. Mushrooms are a huge kingdom of living beings Today, people know about one hundred thousand mushrooms, and some of them bring a lot of benefits to mankind. Here we should not forget about antibiotics and penicillin. Well, besides medicine, mushrooms are eaten. Almost all mushrooms grow in the form of a community of cells, which is collected in a thread of mycelium. And when they germinate into a plant, they can develop a pressure of 800 tons per square meter. And these same fungal threads play the role of the mouth and stomach of mushrooms. They release enzymes that break down potential food into components and eat the nutrients. It turns out that mushrooms grow inside the food they eat. By the way, when you cut a mushroom above the ground, there is still a whole mycelium under it. The mushroom picker is an invisible, but very large part of the fungus. Meanwhile, desperate botanists and the most sophisticated gourmets are in shock. The sizes to which mushrooms can grow can be so impressive that after what they see there are no questions. It is not known what factors can trigger the growth of fungi to unimaginable sizes. But it is clear that such anomalies are extremely rare, at least for today only a few cases are known.
Mushrooms can grow to incredible sizes Mushroom Monster For the first time, the general public learned about the giant mushrooms Armillaria only on April 2, 1992. One of the record holders was on the front page of the most popular New York Times newspaper. The publication described the find, according to reports, the interweaving of underground threads and ground mushrooms covered as many as 15 hectares of land. And all this was a single whole, which experts were able to prove. Armillaria - mushrooms are not big size with a huge mycelium In the same year, another giant mushroom of the same species was found. It occupied a space of about 6 square kilometers. But even he did not become a real record holder. Most big mushroom on the planet grew up in the Malheur National Park in the state of Oregon in the city of Blue Mountains. "Mushroom" covered an area of 890 hectares, which is approximately 1220 football fields. Scientists even calculated how long it took him to grow so huge. It turns out that the age of the fungus is at least 2400 years old. It belongs to the species Armilaria ostoyae, and besides this, it is known as the honey mushroom. However, you definitely cannot make soup from such a record holder, since it is inedible. On the surface, the mushroom leaves only dead trees and small mushrooms, the rest is all underground.
The oldest mushroom in the world
giant mushrooms
And here is the biggest edible mushroom found a certain Jean Guy Richard in Canada. In his basket was a unique raincoat (Calvatia gigantean). And he was really gigantic. The mushroom weighed exactly 22 kilograms and was 2.64 meters in circumference. A giant mushroom weighing 22 kg However, the Mexicans are really lucky. In the summer of 2007, a mushroom weighing about 20 kilograms and more than 60 centimeters long was found on coffee plantations in the Chiaps state of southeastern Mexico. It is noteworthy that he grew up right among the coffee trees. Another edible record holder found in Italy weighed 14 kilograms. It was discovered by Francesco Quito in the province of Bari. And it was a mushroom. To drag such a find home, the mushroom picker had to look for a car.
The biggest mushroom in Italy
Well, the previous giant mushroom was a truffle. True, he weighed a little less than his predecessors, only 7 kilograms. And the most interesting thing is that the people who found the mushroom did not find anything better than to fry and eat the find with their neighbors. And this is taking into account the fact that mushrooms in Italy are valued quite expensively, so the forest miracle could be sold at a profit. One more natural wonder met in the forests of Switzerland. Interesting fact, a huge mushroom turned out to be a simple honey agaric. Scientists were truly struck by its size, because no one had ever suspected before that such mushrooms as mushrooms could become giants. And in fact, the size of the mushroom can inspire respect. Its length is 800 meters and its width is about half a kilometer. With its size, honey agarics covered 35 hectares. In principle, his age is not small, according to the most conservative estimates, one thousand years.
The largest mushroom in the world
In 2011, there were reports that scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the island of Hainan found a mushroom weighing approximately 402-516 kilograms. Since then, it has been called the largest mushroom on the planet. Yu Cheng Dai and his colleagues made the discovery quite by accident. The company went on an expedition with one goal - to study the representatives of the kingdom of fungi in general, they were especially interested in those that, of course, are found in the forests of their native island. The largest mushroom in the world was found in China. It was Fomitiporia ellipsoidea The mushroom was assigned to the species Fomitiporia ellipsoidea, and its age was estimated at 20 years. Over the years, he managed to grow almost 11 centimeters long, 88 centimeters wide and 5 centimeters thick. The mushroom has an unprecedented volume - 409-535 thousand cubic centimeters. However, three years earlier, also in China, but on the other island of Fujian, similar huge mushrooms were discovered, however, they were very different in size from their counterpart from Hainan.
Helpful Hints About Mushrooms
Never eat too many mushrooms (in any form). Although edible mushrooms are delicious, they still require good digestion; the most best mushrooms, eaten in excess, can cause severe and even dangerous indigestion in people with weakened and improper digestion.
For aging mushrooms, before cooking them, you should always remove the lower layer of the cap: for agaric mushrooms - plates, for spongy mushrooms - a sponge, which in a ripe mushroom for the most part becomes soft and easily separated from the cap. Mature spores, contained in abundance in the plates and sponge of a ripe mushroom, are almost not digested.
Peeled mushrooms should be placed in cold water for 30 minutes to soak the sand and dry leaves adhering to them, and thoroughly washed 2-3 times, each time pouring fresh water. It is good to add a little salt to it - it will help get rid of the worms in the mushrooms.
There are fewer mushrooms in the shady wilderness than in patches lit by the sun.
Do not try raw mushrooms!
Do not eat overripe, slimy, flabby, wormy or spoiled mushrooms.
Remember about false mushrooms: do not take mushrooms with a brightly colored cap.
Mushrooms keep well if soaked for several hours in cold water, then cut off the contaminated parts of the legs, rinse in water with the addition of citric acid and boil in water with a small addition of salt to taste. After that, put the hot champignons together with the broth into glass jars, close (but do not roll up!) And store in a cool place (in the refrigerator). From these champignons you can cook various dishes and sauces.
Never pick or eat mushrooms that have a tuberous bulge at the base (like the red fly agaric) and don't taste them.
Be sure to boil the morels and stitches and rinse thoroughly with hot water.
Milky mushrooms should be boiled or soaked for a long time before salting or eating fresh.
Raw mushrooms float, cooked mushrooms sink to the bottom.
When cleaning fresh mushrooms cut off only the lower, contaminated, part of the leg.
Remove the top skin of the cap from the oil.
In morels, the caps are cut off from the legs, soaked for an hour in cold water, washed thoroughly, changing the water 2-3 times, and boiled in salted water for 10-15 minutes. The decoction is not used for food.
Bouillons and sauces are prepared from porcini mushrooms; they are tasty in salted and pickled form. With any method of preparation, they do not change their inherent color and aroma.
Only a decoction of porcini mushrooms and champignons can be used. Even a small amount of this decoction improves any dish.
Boletus and boletus are not suitable for making soups, as they give dark broths. They are fried, stewed, salted and marinated.
Milk mushrooms and mushrooms are used mainly for salting.
Russula is boiled, fried and salted.
Honey mushrooms are fried. Small caps of these mushrooms are very tasty in salted and pickled form.
Chanterelles are never wormy. They are fried, salted and marinated.
Before stewing, the mushrooms are fried.
Mushrooms should be seasoned with sour cream only after they are well fried, otherwise the mushrooms will turn out boiled.
Mushrooms have such a delicate taste and smell that the addition of pungent spices to them only worsens their taste. They are the only mushrooms of their kind that have a light, slightly sour taste.
It is better to fill such primordially Russian food as mushrooms sunflower oil. All tubular mushrooms are fried on it, as well as russula, chanterelles, champignons. They are filled with salted milk mushrooms and volnushki. Oil is poured into glass jars with pickled boletus and mushrooms, so that a thin layer of it protects the marinade from mold.
Don't leave too long fresh mushrooms, substances dangerous to health and even to life appear in them. Sort right away and start cooking. As a last resort, put them in a colander, sieve or enameled pan and, without covering with a lid, refrigerate, but not more than for a day and a half.
Mushrooms collected in rainy weather especially deteriorate quickly. If you leave them in the basket for several hours, they will soften, become unusable. Therefore, they must be prepared immediately. But also ready mushroom dishes can not be stored for a long time - they will deteriorate.
So that the peeled mushrooms do not turn black, put them in salted water, add a little vinegar.
It is easy to remove the skin from russula if you first pour boiling water over them.
With butter before cooking, be sure to remove the film covered with mucus.
Spices are put in the marinade only when it is completely cleared of foam.
So that the marinade from boletus and boletus does not turn black, pour boiling water over them before cooking, hold in this water for 10 minutes, rinse, and then cook in the usual way.
So that the peeled champignons do not darken, they are placed in water slightly acidified with lemon or citric acid.
Be aware of the possibility of botulism and other bacterial diseases in case of violation of sanitary and hygienic requirements when canning mushrooms.
Do not roll up jars with pickled and salted mushrooms with metal lids; this can lead to the development of the botulinum microbe. It is enough to cover the jar with two sheets of paper - plain and waxed, tie tightly and put in a cool place.
It should be remembered that the botulinum bacteria produce their deadly toxin only when there is a severe lack of oxygen (i.e. inside hermetically sealed cans) and at temperatures above +18 degrees. C. When storing canned food at temperatures below +18 gr. With (in the refrigerator) the formation of botulinum toxin in canned food is impossible.
For drying, not old strong mushrooms are selected. They are sorted out and cleaned of adhering earth, but not washed.
In porcini mushrooms, the legs are cut off completely or partially so that no more than half remains. Dry them separately.
In boletus and boletus, the legs are not cut off, but the whole mushroom is cut vertically in half or into 4 parts.
All edible mushrooms can be salted, but most often only lamellar mushrooms are used for this, since tubular mushrooms become flabby when salted.
The marinade from boletus and boletus will not turn black if you pour boiling water over the mushrooms before cooking, soak in this water for 5-10 minutes, then rinse with cold water.
To make the marinade light and transparent, it is necessary to remove the foam during cooking.
Salted mushrooms cannot be kept warm, nor can they be frozen: in either case, they darken.
Store dry mushrooms in a sealed container, otherwise the aroma will evaporate.
If dried mushrooms crumble during storage, do not throw away the crumbs. Powder them and store in a well-stoppered glass jar in a cool, dry place. This powder can be used to make mushroom sauces and broths.
It is good to hold dried mushrooms for several hours in salted milk - they will become like fresh ones.
Dried mushrooms are much better absorbed if they are ground into a powder. From such mushroom flour, you can cook soups, sauces, add to stewed vegetables, meat.
Dried chanterelles are better boiled if you add a little baking soda to the water.
Stitches and morels must be boiled for 7-10 minutes before cooking, pour out the broth (it contains poison). After that, the mushrooms can be boiled or fried.
Boil chanterelles and valui before marinating in salted water for 25 minutes, put on a sieve and rinse. Then put in a saucepan, pour the required amount of water and vinegar, add salt and boil again.
Boil the mushrooms in the marinade for 10-25 minutes. Mushrooms are considered ready when they begin to sink to the bottom and the brine becomes clear.
Salted mushrooms are supposed to be stored in a cold place and at the same time make sure that mold does not appear. From time to time, the cloth and the circle with which they are covered should be washed in hot, slightly salted water.
Pickled mushrooms should be stored in a cool place. In case of mold, all the mushrooms should be thrown into a colander and washed with boiling water, then make a new marinade, boil the mushrooms in it and put them in clean jars, pour vegetable oil and cover with paper.
Dried mushrooms easily absorb moisture from the air, so they should be stored in a dry place in moisture-proof bags or tightly closed jars.
When salting mushrooms, do not neglect dill. Feel free to put it, marinating butterfish, salting russula, chanterelles, valui. But milk mushrooms, mushrooms, whites and volnushki are better to be salted without fragrant herbs. Their natural aroma is more pleasant than dill.
Don't forget the hell. Leaves and roots of horseradish, put in mushrooms, not only give them a spicy sharpness, but are reliably preserved without becoming sour.
Green twigs of blackcurrant give the mushrooms a flavor, and cherry and oak leaves - appetizing fragility and strength.
Most mushrooms are best salted without onions. It quickly loses its aroma, easily turns sour. Chop onions (you can also green) only in salted mushrooms and milk mushrooms, as well as in pickled mushrooms and mushrooms.
Bay leaf, thrown into boiling mushrooms and mushrooms, will give them a special flavor. Put in the marinade also a little cinnamon, cloves, star anise.
There are many interesting facts about mushrooms. Japanese researchers have established for certain that the mushroom can think and remember, and the mycelium is a unique natural underground "Internet"! It is also interesting that the mycelium itself can grow indefinitely, sometimes reaching monstrous sizes. About 10 years ago in the state of Michigan (USA) a 2000-year-old mushroom net was discovered, it spread underground over 900 hectares, which is equal to about 1800 football fields. Given that the mycelium is the vegetative body of the fungus, we can safely say that the “Michigan miracle” is the largest mushroom in the world.
There are several more similar mycelium monsters on earth:
- the dark honey agaric or, scientifically, Armillaria ostoyae, has a huge mycelium of 35 hectares in the National Park in Switzerland near the Offen Pass. The mycelium is at least 1000 years old and is the largest in Europe;
- in 1992, researchers in Washington state accidentally stumbled upon mycelium that covered 600 hectares;
- before the discovery of the “Michigan Diva”, the title “The Biggest Mushroom” belonged to an organism that scientists found in 2000 in a relict forest in Oregon (USA). The honey agaric mycelium has grown simply to a gigantic size: it occupied 880 hectares, which is equal to 1,700 football fields, while its threads go about one and a half meters deep into it. The age of this mycelium is 2500 years!
Outside, we see only representatives of this huge living creature - mushrooms with a stem and a cap, of a normal size and familiar to the eye. Meanwhile, in nature there are also huge mushrooms (in the usual sense of the word). The largest mushrooms in the world are described below, which amaze the imagination with their size and weight.
giant mushrooms
A huge raincoat from the champignon family was found in 1987 by Canadian Jean Guy Richard. This giant mushroom had a circumference of 2.6 meters, weighed 24 kg! A photo of a mushroom picker with his trophy immediately hit the Internet and scattered around the world. Scientists, evaluating the find, concluded: the raincoat could produce such a number of spores that the mushrooms that grew from their generation could cover the entire area of \u200b\u200bour planet three times.
Only 1 kg “lost” a mushroom to a raincoat, which local found in 2007 in the south of Mexico in the state of Chiapas. With a height of 67 cm, he weighed 23 kg. A year later, in 2008, again in Mexico, a biologist discovered a mushroom weighing 22 kg. Here are the giants! They can feed the whole village!
The largest mushroom (with a stem and cap) ever found in Europe is considered to be a champignon weighing 14 kg. It grew quietly in a field in the Italian province of Bari until it was found and cut by local farmer Francesco Quito. Together with his wife, they delivered the find home by car, cleaned it, cut it, fried it, and invited all the neighbors for a treat! This was a feast for the whole world!
On the last place there is a rather modest find of a 25-year-old girl Terry Hodson Walker. She found the fungus on her land in the English county of Staffordshire in 2011. In fact, the fungus, indeed, has a very modest size compared to the giants described above. Its diameter was only 47 cm, and its weight was just over 2 kg. But for some reason, this find was given a lot of attention, a photo of a girl with a mushroom walks all over the Internet under the loud title "The biggest mushroom in the world"! Maybe the girl is pretty, because the mushroom is clearly not the biggest and does not deserve such interest ...
Russian record holders
This is again a raincoat mushroom. He was found in 2011 in the Permian forest by an amateur " silent hunting» Vladislav Grabosinsky. After measurements and weighing, it turned out that the giant has a hat with a diameter of no less than 1 meter 72 cm, its height is 52 cm, and it weighs 12 kg 150 grams. Vladislav did not eat the find, but delivered it intact to the Botany Department of the Perm University. Let them study for health!
Another record holder is the Russian birch boletus, found in a forest in the Tomsk region. It was discovered by local mushroom picker Aleksey Korol while picking mushrooms near his village. The man was simply shocked by the find: the height of the leg of the giant mushroom was 28 cm, and the diameter of his hat was 36 centimeters, while he weighed 2.4 kilograms! Interestingly, the mushroom was absolutely clean, without wormholes and damage.
If large raincoats or tinder fungus are periodically found, then such a giant boletus is an incredible rarity. So far, not a single such fungus has been officially recorded. Although it may be that simple people who find something similar do not understand the full value of the find. They simply rejoice at the big mushroom, take pictures with it as a keepsake and eat together a unique mushroom. Photos from the Internet prove that such giants are found in Russia.
For example, this photo from the web is clearly real. On it, two charming ladies present simply huge mushroom, but no information about him was found ... Therefore, it is advisable to report such finds to specialists, although it is not a fact that the giant will not be taken away, then you won’t have to try it anymore, and it will be a little insulting ...
giant tinder fungus
Another giant mushroom was found in 2015 in China. His scientific name- Ganoderma Lucidum or varnished polypore. The Chinese call it “Lingzhi” or “immortality mushroom”, claiming that this species prolongs life, preserves eternal youth, improves health, relieves hypertension and allergies, cures asthma and even oncology.
The find's cap diameter is 107 cm, and the "mushroom" weighed 7.5 kg. Experts valued it at $900.
In general, large tinder fungi are not so rare. For example, in the UK, on the territory of the Institute of Mycology, a tinder fungus grows, the diameter of which has already reached 4 meters!
The tallest
The tallest mushroom in the world is the parasol. It can be found in the forests of many European countries, as well as in Russia. On average, this fungus has a hat up to 30 cm in diameter, which is attached to a stem up to 40 cm high. But this is an average. Finds up to 1 meter high have been recorded! A mushroom to the waist is already from the country of giants!
From the Guinness Book of Records
There are two amazing entries in this Book:
- according to the first, in 1946 in Washington (USA) a tinder fungus was found, a real giant, whose dimensions were 140x94 cm, and it weighed as much as 136 kg!
- the second entry says that in 1985, again in the USA, in Wisconsin, a raincoat with a girth of almost 195 cm grew.
It is even difficult to imagine such a thing. But the Guinness Book of Records is credible...
The largest living organism on the planet October 12th, 2015
This is a MUSHROOM, or rather, a dark mushroom mycelium (Armillaria ostoyae), which develops in the Malur forest reserve in US state Oregon. The mycelium of this living creature covers an area of more than 880 hectares, and its age is estimated at 2.4 thousand years.
The largest living organism on the planet is sometimes called the Oregon monster or the monster mushroom, and not at all because of its gigantic size. The fact is that a giant mycelium, entangling the roots of trees, causes the death of the latter. And already many of the trees in the reserve have become victims of a huge mycelium. By the way, thanks to mass death trees and managed to calculate the giant.
Attracted by the history of the death of trees, biologists in 1998 were able to determine that the mushroom mycelium from Oregon is not separate clusters growing throughout the forest, but a giant integral living organism.
Previously, the largest living creature in the world was considered the mycelium of the dark mushroom, which grows in the state of Washington. Its size was estimated at 600 hectares.
It is possible that there are larger myceliums on our planet, the existence of which is still unknown to scientists.
And here is the story of its discovery:
This find was reported in the current issue of the Canadian journal Forest Research. "The fact that an organism like this has grown in a forest for thousands of years really expands our view of the forest ecosystem and how it works," said Dr. Katherine Parks, a pathologist at the US Department of Agriculture who led the study.
The researchers discovered this giant mushroom in the Malheur National Park, which covers an area of 590,000 hectares and consists of highland fields, pine forests and mountain lakes. This area lies at an altitude of 1200-2750 meters above sea level.
A single organism of such a large size has led to new insights into the role of fungi in forest ecology. It used to be believed that mushrooms like honey mushrooms grew in groups within the forest, visible from the air in ring zones of the dead trees.
But when the researchers collected mushroom samples from an area of 9.65 square kilometers throughout the Oregon forest, during the course of the test it turned out that these were samples of the same mushroom. Scientists have estimated its age in the range from 2000 to 8500 years.
"It's a single organism that started out as a microscopic spore and then spread like a plant," Parks said. "If we could remove all the soil and look at what's left, then we would see only one big pile of a single fungus with all its mycelium filaments that penetrate all the soil below the surface."
Researchers now believe that the fungus is part of a natural cycle of tree renewal and decline within forests and that it is often present in areas with little tree damage.
Our forestry should also think about this problem, since honey mushrooms grow throughout our strip of Russia. Apparently, the principle of distribution of all mushrooms is the same, regardless of their species and habitat. So when we go to the woods and collect mushrooms, perhaps we put them in our basket fruit bodies the same mushroom.
And here are some more options:
"Pando" is a clonal colony of aspen poplar (USA, Utah). As scientists have established, 47 thousand stems come from one once living poplar. All 47 thousand stems have a single root system and can be called a single organism, the mass of which is 6 thousand tons. The age of "Pando" is 80 thousand years (according to some estimates - up to a million years), which makes it one of the main candidates for the title of the longest-lived organism on the planet.
Clonal colony- This is a group of genetically identical individuals (plants, fungi, bacteria) that grew up in one place, multiplied vegetatively, and not sexually. In plants, an individual of such a population is called a ramet. In fungi, individuals develop from a common mycelium hidden in the soil. Clonal colonies are common in many plant species. Although some of them reproduce sexually through seeds, reproduction can be carried out in some cases through underground stolons and rhizomes. Above ground, these plants appear to be separate individuals, so clonal colonies are not always easy to recognize.
Pando is thought to have grown under ideal conditions for most of its life: frequent fires prevented its main competitor, the conifers, from colonizing, and climate change from humid to semi-arid prevented the spread of seedlings and the attendant competition from young poplars.
During strong fires, the organism survived thanks to the root system, throwing out new shoots on the ashes. Due to its age, Pando was born in a climate significantly different from today, and probably flowered in last time about ten millennia ago, according to an OECD report:
Clonal groups of P. tremuloides are very common in eastern North America, but usually occupy no more than 0.1 ha, while groups as large as 80 ha have been observed in Utah (Kemperman and Barnes 1976). According to some claims, seedlings have not spread in the western United States since the last glaciation, about 10,000 years ago (Einspahr and Winton 1976, McDonough 1985). In fact, some biologists believe that Western clones may be as old as 1 million years (Barnes 1966, 1975). A single clone, nicknamed "Pando" (Latin for "I spread"), has been claimed to cover 43 hectares, contain over 47,000 shoots, weigh over 6 million kg, and be the largest organism known (Grant et al. 1992, Mitton and Grant 1996) .
The clone covers 43 hectares (107 acres) and has about 47,000 trunks that die and renew themselves from its roots. The trunks are connected to each other by the root system. The average age of a Pando trunk (or more accurately, a shoot) is 130 years old, as revealed by tree rings.
<…>Compared to Pando, who lives by the most common estimate of 80,000 years, according to the most accepted point of view among anthropologists, Homo sapiens migrated from Africa to Eurasia and Oceania only 40,000 years ago, and to America 10,000 years ago.”
Another candidate for the title of the longest-lived and largest clonal organism on Earth is a colony of oceanic Posidonia south of the island of Ibiza in the Mediterranean Sea. Clonal colony of oceanic Posidonia 8 km in size. in diameter can be up to 100 thousand years old.
sources
http://www.nat-geo.ru/fact/41372-gigant-iz-oregona/
http://newsland.com/news/detail/id/1101406/
http://www.wolfnight.ru/forum/forum_theme.php?theme=1654&page=1
http://www.factroom.ru/facts/1461
Something else BIGGEST for you: here, and here The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -The largest mushroom in the world in the usual sense for us was found in 2007 in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. Its height was more than 60 centimeters, and its weight was 23 kilograms. This is not the only major find in Mexico; in 2008, a local biologist accidentally found a mushroom weighing over 20 kilograms.
However, the largest mushroom in size is the mushroom located in this moment in the US state of Oregon in Malheur National Park. According to experts, its age can be about 2.5 thousand years. Its dimensions are impressive, a large mushroom can be compared with 1230 football fields. The giant belongs to the species Armilaria ostoyae, which should not be eaten.
The largest mushroom in the world that can be eaten is a mushroom discovered in 1987 by Canadian Jean Guy Richard. The weight of the giant was 22 kilograms, and the diameter was 2.64 meters.
In 2011, a large mushroom weighing more than 2 kilograms and 47 centimeters in diameter was discovered in the English county of Staffordshire. The giant was found by a young girl named Terry Hodson Walker. 25 summer girl owns land in the county, where you can often find large mushrooms, however, according to the girl, most of the mushrooms did not reach such large sizes, as they are eaten by animals. In addition, such mushrooms are very delicate and any, even the most insignificant effect on them, has a detrimental effect on their further growth.
Remember the gnome who sat on the fly agaric hat. He so often becomes the hero of fairy tales in some Western countries. His decorative sculptures adorn many parks and attractions in the world.
Mushrooms are very interesting for housewives who create culinary masterpieces. They are of particular interest to a certain category of young people addicted to hallucinogens.
Yes, for many it is not easy to pass by even just the image of an unusual specimen of a giant mushroom found by someone.
And when you are going to the forest for mushrooms, you hope that you will come across such an unusual find, a really huge mushroom, even a giant. But usually you pick up the most common boletus, mushrooms, milk mushrooms, waves and others. forest beauties. And someone is much more lucky. And then the find becomes the subject of active discussion for a long time and inspires hope in subsequent mushroom pickers that such luck awaits them.
By the way, giant mushrooms not at all an anomaly, as biologists believe, and most of them are edible. And find them in the most different parts Sveta.
Armillaria ostoyae (honey mushroom)
He was found in the relict forests of the United States. It belongs to the largest creatures living on the planet. Its largest part settled underground, leaving only small mushrooms, macromycetes, honey mushrooms above, any of which can easily fit even in the hand. But its mycelium is a single organism and is conveniently located on 880 hectares in national park Oregon. This is a real monster.
For about two and a half thousand years, it grew, destroyed the roots of trees on the way, and has now reached a weight of more than 600 kilograms. Only now hardly anyone can cook soup from it. One such giant was first reported to the general public in 1992 by the New York Times.
This giant tinder fungus, almost eleven meters high and with a hat width of 82-88 centimeters, was found in China. Similar outstanding representatives of the mushroom kingdom have been found here since 2007 more than once. But a half-ton giant like this one did not come across until 2010. Yes, and they discovered it by chance during the study of tree mushrooms in the forests of Hainan Island, because for about 20 years it grew underground and went unnoticed for a long time.
During an ordinary walk along the forest paths, this 26-kilogram handsome man, who also became a fashion model, caught the eye of the inhabitants of Canada.
It was discovered in 2007 in Mexico among coffee trees, a specimen weighing 20 kilograms and almost 70 centimeters tall. And two years earlier, a similar giant of only 28 kilograms was found on a coffee plantation in the United States. They are also called giant rows and ten-kilogram specimens surprise few people.
Macromycetes from China
This giant of 15 kilograms was also of an unusual shape, as if on its only leg there was a whole hundred small mushroom caps, up to a meter in diameter. The type of this fungal organism, so eccentric, has not yet been determined.
This giant, weighing 14 kilograms, was carried by a lucky mushroom picker from Italy on his shoulder with great difficulty. If not for the car, it is not known how he would have got home. Doubly lucky. The fungus turned out to be even edible, and in order to eat it, I had to call the neighbors for help.
Was found in the Perm region. Half-meter handsome, hat in 1.72 meters diameter. He weighed more than 12 kilograms, but they say that they met more, almost 20 kilograms. Of course, the mushroom is edible, but it has served science, since it is no longer young and not as tasty as those that are much younger. By the way, this is the largest mushroom found in Russia. And it is absolutely known that in the previous mushroom season nothing grew in this place. And in 2011, this giant grew up among brothers, the same raincoats, which were only slightly smaller than him in size.
Porcini
Once "Moscow Radio" reported in live about a completely unusual find that can amaze the imagination and arouse the envy of any mushroom picker, even the most experienced one. This delicacy miracle weighed almost eleven kilograms, and the diameter of its hat reached almost 60 centimeters. It is a pity that there is no information about the place of discovery, only the year 1961 is known. But one thing is clear for sure. For a mushroom picker, such a find is true happiness. About nutritional useful properties mushrooms are known to everyone, here they will leave behind any edible mushroom that is known to man. And because of this, such a find becomes even more valuable.
So in China they call varnished tinder fungi, a huge specimen of which weighs seven and a half kilograms and has a diameter of more than a meter was discovered in Hezhou. A real find for Chinese medicine. It is not in vain that he received the name "mushroom of immortality" for his remarkable ability to increase immunity and has been actively used for more than two thousand years.
This find in the south of Italy can be considered the most expensive mushroom. If the owner had sold this unique seven-kilogram handsome man, he would have earned a lot, because there are no more mushrooms in the world than truffles. But the family enjoyed the fried yummy with pleasure.
In certain areas of the country by searches white truffle, the rarest and most coveted food ingredient in the world, is handled by specially trained dogs and only three last months of the year. And from time to time there are giants up to two kilograms in weight, most often sold at auctions and tens of thousands of dollars are paid for them.
He was found in the Tomsk region. A 28 cm leg held a giant's hat 36 cm in diameter. And he weighed 2.4 kilograms. And with such his parameters, he was not even wormy.
He grew up in the garden, where his mistress discovered him when the rainy season ended. Handsome, a little over two kilograms in weight and with a hat reaching 46 centimeters in diameter. In general, it is enough just to touch such a mushroom so that it breaks down and stops growing.
And yet, mushrooms of truly impressive size are quite rare. And then the lucky one will notify the world about such luck.