Study
Mushroom
Money, Nicholas P.
Oxford University Press, 2011
A monograph on the biology of mushrooms: development of the fruiting body, spore production and discharge, growth by water uptake, ecology and the relationship between the mushroom and the mycelium that makes it.
- Studied in
- Agaricomycetes
- Sample size
- monographic account of mushroom biology
A mushroom expands mainly by inflating pre-formed cells with water rather than by dividing new ones, which is why fruiting bodies appear overnight after rain. A single large fruiting body can release billions of spores over a few days.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
The mushroom is best understood as a short-lived, water-driven spore-launching structure produced by a long-lived mycelium.
How NatureHQ reads it
Reference consensus for the natural history a mushroom page needs and no single paper supplies. The water-inflation point does the most work for readers: mushrooms are not growing quickly in the ordinary sense, they are unfolding a structure that was already built, which is why the trigger is rain and why they collapse so fast afterwards.
- A synthesis; individual figures carry the uncertainty of their sources.
- Emphasis on the gilled mushrooms, which are one part of fungal diversity.
- Predates a decade of fungal genomics.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Academic book publishersPublished as an academic monograph.
doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732562.001.0001
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-10.