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Science

There's a Fungus Among Us 49

Posted by michael from the field-trip dept.
EhobaX writes "BBC News reports, 'Swiss scientists have found what they say may be Europe's biggest mushroom - covering an area about the size of 35 football pitches.'"
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There's a Fungus Among Us More

There's a Fungus Among Us

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  • ...is widely regarded as this [odu.edu] (next to last paragraph of section I)
  • Ah... Large enough for the hobits I think. BTW, what's size of the largest mushroom in Asia, Africa and Oceania and South America? The mushrooms in Antarctic must be very small I guess.

  • The world's largest (Score:5, Informative)

    by spin2cool ( 651536 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @09:49AM (#10373526)

    is still found here in the USA, in eastern Oregon. It's the size of 1,665 football fields! More info here. [infoplease.com]

    My only surprise was that it wasn't in Texas. Aren't they supposed to do everything bigger?

    • Re:The world's largest (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      My only surprise was that it wasn't in Texas. Aren't they supposed to do everything bigger?

      Not everything. Just their egos.

    • I think some Quaking Aspen are bigger. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JQuick ( 411434 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @11:02AM (#10374416)
      Some aspen forests are dominated by clones. Additional trunks sprout from the roots of its sibling, break the surface, and appear to be a distinct individuals even though the root system is still partially shared among them.

      If the shared root structure is broken, certain clumps of trees may now be considered separate organisms, despite being genetically identical siblings. Logically, even a few capillary sized connections would suffice to define their status as a single organism.

      The mycelia underground by which this fungus spreads, and which serves to define these large mushrooms as a single organism are analogous to the shared root system of these quaking aspen forests. The fruiting bodies (mushrooms) on the surface grow from a shared network of underground fibers. The trees and mushrooms are each genetically homogeneous, interconnected biological systems, thus single organisms.

      One such tree/clone-forest in Utah named Pando (latin for "I spread") has over 47,000 trunks, weighs over 7 million kilograms, and covers about 118 acres. A large number of similar clone forests exist in Canada. Though some believe one or more of these Aspen groves in Canada is larger, Pando is older by several hundred years.

      So, this mushroom in Washington has a web of mycelia that span 2200 acres. On the surface it seasonally fruits above ground bodies in shady areas scattered across this area. That's big. Despite the fact that the horizontal surface spanned by the underground network is about 20 times larger, perhaps the Aspen edges it out.

      Above ground the volume and mass of the aspen, per acre, is significantly greater. One trunk, its branches, roots, and leaves, are certainly more massive than a significant number of mushrooms. At nearly 5 thousand trunks per acre, that's a lot of wood! Since the acreage difference is only a factor of 20, one only need show that one acre of Aspen is 20 times heavier or voluminous than one acre of this mushroom. I found no data to confirm this but I believe that 1 acre of Pando would kick one acre of mushrooms butt.

      I'll grant that the mushroom covers a larger footprint on the soil thus has a larger area (measure in acreage). The mycelia also may edge out the root system per acre in displaced soil volume. Considered in their entirety I'd be very surprised if by volume or mass it is truly the largest. Thus, I find it hard to believe that this mushroom is a larger organism than Pando.

      BTW, These clone forests are quite interesting in the fall and spring. The connected clones change color in the fall, and open their leaf buds in the spring in parallel. It is possible to see the boundary of clone forests, and spot genetically different isolated trees within the boundary of the forest. Mid season they are visually indistinguishable. At those times, isolated trees, or boundaries between genetically diverse stands of trees, are easy to spot visually.

      • Retraction (Score:4, Informative)

        by JQuick ( 411434 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @11:49AM (#10374942)
        Replying to my own post is kind of lame.

        I since found several other references which seem to confirm that the living mass of the Washington state mushroom is greater than that of Pando. Much of the bulk and mass of a tree is dead cellulose fibers. Though some of the mass of mycelial fiber is dead connective tissue as well, a substantially greater fraction of it is actively metabolizing living tissue.

        It seems like this young whippersnapper wins the title (10,500 year old pando, vs 1,500 year old mushroom). I still wistfully hope that some Canadian behemoth is eventually found. I like mushrooms, they are tasty, but aesthetically I'd prefer a tree to win over a fungus (even though we are more closely related to the fungus than the tree).
      • In your opinion does a Siamese "person" count as one or two? They are as joined as these organisms. I would say that physical connection is not enough. What is I don't know though.

        • In your opinion does a Siamese "person" count as one or two? They are as joined as these organisms. I would say that physical connection is not enough. What is I don't know though.

          You raise an interesting point re: Siamese Twins. Like you, in the case of conjoined twins, I have the gut reaction that they are distinct. I also agree that physical connection is not enough. However, a bit more thought reveals that the case of conjoined twins is still not very clear cut. It only appears so initially by v

    • Re:The world's largest (Score:3, Informative)

      by blamanj ( 253811 )
      To put the comparison in European units, that's 1220 soccer pitches [guinnessworldrecords.com] or 890 hectares [fortunecity.com].
    • In other research, scientists have determined that fungi are more closely related to human beings and animals than to other plants.

      Hey, speak for yourself! I don't have any relatives that are fungi!

      Moreover, while humans and most species are divided into only two sexes, mushrooms contain over 36,000 sexes.

      Well... that could certainly make dating confusing!

  • Imagine the pizza *that* could make.

  • Queue the X-Files theme! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Am I the only one who had that X-Files episode come to mind? You know, the one where Scully experiences this weird reality, only to discover she's trapped underground in some hallucenagenic mushroom? :) Kinda like the TNG episode where Riker finds himself in an insane asylum, like in the play he was in with Data, except Scully is better looking than Riker and there was no mushroom colony.

    Yeah, lame post. So sue me. :-P

  • Is it a magical mushroom?

  • Ginormous (Score:3, Funny)

    by Palshife ( 60519 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @11:00AM (#10374393) Homepage
    35 football pitches

    Jeez, thats huge. I wonder how many hogs heads that is...

  • Tsk (Score:4, Funny)

    by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @11:09AM (#10374536) Homepage
    If they aren't measuring in Library of Congresses, I'm not interested...
  • All I could think of was purple stuff that grew on the ground as the zerg expanded their base. Hmmm I'd make an overlord joke here... but I'll pass.

  • covering an area about the size of 35 football pitches Can somebody tell us how big that is in football fields for those of us that have no idea how big a "football pitch" is? (E.g., for us ignorant Americans?)

    • Re:Sorry old chap... (Score:3, Informative)

      by jfengel ( 409917 )
      A football pitch is pretty much the same size as an American football field. The pitch is about the same length and somewhat wider.

      An American football field is 100 yards long (plus two ten-yard end zones) and 160 feet (53 1/3 yards) wide.

      A soccer field is actually less well defined:

      Length: minimum 100 m (110 yds) maximum 110 m (120 yds)

      Width: minimum 64 m (70 yds) maximum 75 m (80 yds)

      For for the purposes of a rough measurement like the one in the article, football pitch = football field.

      Football is
  • "I for one..."

  • ...can it move a B-bomb all the way from one side of the city to the other? And what is it's opinion of plumbers? This article has certainly left out a lot of facts.
  • Day dreaming of the Mycon and thinking of the Juffo-Wup?

    Juffo-Wup fills my fibers and I grow turgid.

    A single spore lands, finds nourishment in decay and attains maturity..
    In turn it exhales a cloud of life, a thousand spores land... so progresses Juffo-Wup.

    A cold rock, spinning silently in the Void, a womb for the Children.

    In the dark they grow, the deep fire feeds the Children.
    Their birth breathes warmth across a cold world.

    When we encounter the Non, we must absorb the Non or reject the Non so that it
  • Not mushroom left in that forest, then..

  • sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, the Washington Post reported discovery of another large mushroom, this one somewhere in the northern Plains States (Minnesota or Wisconsin maybe, not sure)...

    The headline to the article was "There's a Humongous Fungus Among Us"

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