Features of the structure of the cap mushroom

Lovers of "quiet hunting" have long been visited by the thought: if only this beauty - yes to your dacha, then you don't have to go to the forest, bend your back, or trample your feet.And now the age-old dream has come true - now you can grow oyster mushrooms, mushrooms, and species with intricate foreign names: meitaki, reishi, shiitaki right at home! In this review, we will talk about the structure of the cap mushroom.

The structure of cap mushrooms

But before getting to grips with the production of delicacies, it is necessary to find out what this forest dweller needs and what is contraindicated. Therefore, the question immediately arises: what is a mushroom and what is its structure?

The previously accepted classification as lower plants is now not relevant - these organisms are characterized not only by the way of life of plants, but also by some features of animals. So, the skin of the cap is like the mucous membrane of the stomach: having secreted digestive enzymes on its surface, upon reaching the necessary state of the food they have digested, it actively absorbs the formed "nutritious broth".

It is a great misconception to think that mushrooms are what pierced the forest soil and basked in the sun, rapidly gaining weight from summer rains. No, these are just fruiting bodies that will rot within a week if they are not eaten by animals or picked up by humans.

A real mushroom is practically invulnerable and eternal, because it is protected from adverse conditions by a thick layer of soil suitable for it. "Real" is a mycelium, or mushroom colony, consisting of thin sensitive filaments - hyphae, spreading in the soil in all directions.

It is this circumstance that is used in mushroom growing: it is necessary to carefully divide the mycelium into fragments - and it can be transported even to another state, if only the conditions on the road correspond to the required ones. And then grow the desired types of mushrooms from it at home.

If you turn the hat

In places rated by hyphae as the most favorable for growth, "fruiting" begins. Here they form especially dense structures - fruiting bodies, or actually mushrooms. Mushroom bodies are nothing more than a compact mass of parallel, close to each other fibers of hyphae, each of which looks like a cut to a multi-core cable.

The fruiting body consists of legs and caps with different structures. therefore as it grows, the cells forming it begin to divide into:

• fibers with the function of forming and maintaining shape;
• highly specialized structures.

The first ones are the base fabrics, “fittings” of the legs and caps of the mushroom structure. In addition to the classical form, there are fruiting bodies: coral-shaped, spherical, similar to an ear or a saucer and many other, even more bizarre configurations.

From cells with a narrow specialization, spore-bearing structures are formed - reproductive organs.

If the upper part of the cap is formed by the same fibrous "meat" as the stem, then its lower part (called the hymenophore) looks like either a spongy layer or a circle of radially diverging plates. Less commonly, the hymenophore has a surface:

• smooth;
• prickly;
• folded;
• labyrinthine.

On the lateral surfaces of the tubes or plates of the hymenophore are clavate formations - basidia, at the ends of which spores form.

In species of a different structure, the spores mature in closed cavities that do not have an outlet - bags located either on the outer surface or in the bowels of the fruit bodies.

In accordance with this sign, mushrooms are divided into:

• basidiomycetes (tubular, lamellar and with a different structure of the hymenophore) and
• ascomycetes, or marsupials (Greek askos means "bag").

Upon closer inspection

Fungi can be single-celled or multicellular.

An example of the first option is yeast, consisting of one cell (even if there are many daughter chambers formed during budding, this is one cell). Due to their existence in an abundant food environment, many of them do not realize their ability for sexual reproduction, preferring budding.

The traditional-structured hat mushroom with a large fruiting body is a multicellular organism. It has a cap and a leg. The leg can be connected to the head:

• in the center;
• eccentric (off-center);
• sideways (merging of the leg with the edge of the cap).

This structure is fully justified by the task of each of the parts of the structure.

Leg - the support post raises the hat as high as possible above the ground level. The longer the leg, the longer there will be no contact of the cap with the ground, which means that it will not rot for longer. In addition, this way it is better visible to animals eating mushrooms: snails and larger ones, up to elk.

The bright color of the cap and the smell emanating from it also stimulates the desire to eat the mushroom. But why do this? For the satiety of the body of the one who has eaten and ... for the spread of the species to new corners of the forest. Or even for "export" to the neighboring forest.

Hat - the crowning head - is not only a decoration of the mushroom, but if not a reproductive organ, then at least part of a plan to capture new territories,

For it contains controversy.

Breeding features

Spores are clearly visible under aging specimens in the form of a circle (with a diameter exactly to the size of the cap) made of powder, which has a characteristic color for the species. They, having matured and spilled out of the cap, exactly repeat the pattern of its hymenophore - tubular, lamellar, or other (in tinder fungus - labyrinth-like).

Spore is analogous to the seed of higher plants, a matrix of one cell, containing the entire program of life and development of the organism. When eaten, it is not digested in the intestines of the eater, but falling on the soil and growing deep into it, gives rise to a new mycelium.

So for the sly ones, the chance to settle wider increases, for disputes, having traveled in the body of an animal as free passengers, will get to new places, often many kilometers away from the old ones.

From the human intestine, spores are unlikely to get into the soil (rather, into the sewer). But a person throws mushroom scraps onto a manure heap or into a compost box, or even whole specimens: wormy, old and overripe. And after a while, with surprise and joy, he finds there strong champignons or other species that are unpretentious to the growing conditions.

Growing mushrooms in the garden is not difficult at all

Forest beauties, after all, do not even need light for life - only warmth, moisture and a nutritious substrate. therefore it costs them almost nothing to create conditions for growth - you just need to buy mycelium on a plant or woody substrate, or "settle" mushroom caps in a suitable place on the site.

And woody species from the class of tinder fungus are implanted into scraps of suitable dead wood by placing the mycelium on special sticks (sent in sterile packaging) into holes drilled in it, followed by sealing them with an inert material.

Oyster mushrooms are successfully cultivated on a plant-straw substrate, and for the sake of such valuable mushrooms as reishi, it will not be a sin to try transplanting mycelium into a living tree.