Some people love mushrooms, some hate them, but lots don’t even know that mushrooms are fungi. When you mention the word fungus, most people wince, envisioning a deformed toenail or wedge of cheese that started sprouting green growth in the drawer of the fridge. But fungi are a much-maligned group. Speaking of that hairy cheese, where do you think the blue-cheese lovers of the world would be without a little mold to spice things up? Or, better yet, how about gorgeous mounds of crusty bread, still warm from the oven? A fungus called yeast provides the lift for the loaves. And that little thing called Penicillin that has saved millions of lives through the years…yes, that’s from a fungus, too.

Now that you have a proper respect for the many ways fungus contribute to your day-to-day life, would you like to see how diverse, how fascinating, how beautiful they can be? October is the perfect time to scout out a bit of fabulous fungi. All you need is the great outdoors.

Have you ever seen a fairy ring? Ancient cultures couldn’t understand how a perfect circle of mushrooms could happen, so they explained it by saying that fairies created them to dance in. A fun thought, but the truth is even more entertaining. First, you next to know a little about the makeup of mushrooms.

Most of us think that a mushroom is the fleshy cap that you buy in the store to eat. That’s not true. I want you to think of it in a different way, using an apple tree as an example. An apple tree sometimes has leaves, flowers, and fruit, but it is none of those things. It is always a tree. A mushroom consists of an underground organism that we never see called a myselium; that is the “tree.” It has hypha, which are the “roots.” And the “fruit” it sends out is the part we eat. Just like an apple tree, the myselium is vastly larger than it’s fruit. Think how small an apple is, compared to the tree. The stem on the portabello you buy at the store? The myselium that bore the fruit can be 20 times that size!

That brings us back to fairy rings. The myselium consumes all the organic material around it. The next season, it is forced to spread out further for food, and thus produces fruit in a larger circle. There are no mushrooms in the center because it has exhausted the food supply there. As the years go by, the myselium can create massive rings of mushrooms, seemingly by magic. How big can the rings get? No one knows for sure, but the largest one on record is in Belfort, France. It measures two-thousand feet in diameter and is over seven hundred years old!

A place where there are fallen logs or branches is a perfect spot to start your scientific scavenger hunt. Most fungi are decomposers, so they live on dying or decayed wood. The log below is a great example. These shelf mushrooms look like an oyster bed on dry land!

No, this stick didn’t get spray-painted. The turquoise stain is natural, as are the tiny blue trumpets emerging from it. I also have samples that are electric blue and bright purple. I think God has a really great time making the tiniest things interesting, even if no one notices them but him.

The ledge-like mushrooms below looked like velvety swirls of caramel tipped with white chocolate.

The log below is home to a stunning array of different lichens, shelf mushrooms, even some “crust-like” mushrooms that look like a spread of mold. So much life on a single piece of dead wood!

My biology class found tons of different varieties of fungi. They prevailed against a very rainy day, determined nothing would stop them in the pursuit of science!

Autumn is the perfect time for taking walks in the woods. The leaves are changing, the weather is cooling, and the fungi are flourishing. Go out with your family. Take a breath of fresh air and stop to really look around you. Admire how amazingly intricate and beautiful something as humble as a fungus can be.

Try it. You might even say you are likin’ lichens, or that it’s fun to find fungus. Yep, I went there. I hope you do too!