Did You Know?

  • There is evidence that mushrooms and their mycelia have been on the planet for millions if not billions of years, predating the dinosaurs.
  • Ancient Egyptians believed that mushrooms paved a path to immortality, according to the hieroglyphics they left behind 4,600 years ago. They were considered food for royalty only.
  • History reveals that the Egyptians were not alone in believing that mushrooms possess super-human properties able to lead the soul to the realm of the gods. Cibus Deorum was how the early Romans referred to mushrooms – food of the gods. They gave mushrooms to warriors at special feasts as they were reputed to increase strength.
  • A fourteenth-century Chinese medical text mentions the fact that shiitake mushrooms can be used to activate ‘chi’ – the body’s natural life force.
  • France was the leader in the formal cultivation of mushrooms. Some accounts say that Louis XIV was the first mushroom grower. Around this time mushrooms were grown in special caves near Paris set aside for this unique form of agriculture.
  • In other civilisations throughout the world, including Russia, China, Greece, Mexico and Latin America, mushroom rituals were practised on the belief they could produce unusual strength, and lead the soul to another realm.
  • For thousands of years, Eastern cultures have revered mushrooms as both food and medicine. Tradition has it that there are more than 50 species with healing properties. When used as medicine, mushrooms are made into soup or tea, or taken as a tonic or elixir.
  • In 1891, the first book on mushroom growing was published and it shed new light on the theory of cultivation. William Falconer, a mushroom grower and experimenter from Dosoris, Long Island, agreed with the recommendations of agricultural journalists and compiled their theories in Mushrooms: How to Grow Them; A Practical Treatise on Mushroom Culture for Profit and Pleasure.
  • The 1st century Roman poet Martial, a famous writer of epigrams said: “Argentum atque aurum facile EST, laenam togomque mittere, Boletus mittere difficile EST”. It is easy to despise gold and silver, but exceedingly difficult to refuse a plate of mushrooms.
  • Even though mushrooms were known to the ancient civilisations, very little evidence exists to indicate the prevailing attitudes to fungi. In those times, its edibility or use in medicinal concoctions weighed the usefulness of a plant.
  • Hippocrates (born around 460 BC) writes of having used mushrooms in medicinal preparations.
  • Pliny the Elder (AD 50) associated poisonous mushrooms with the breath of snakes. Plutarch explained that truffles sprang into existence during thunderstorms, when the flames that came from the moist vapours, and the noise from the soft clouds, struck the ground.
  • Animal, vegetable or mineral? In the case of mushrooms the answer is none of the above, for they are the fruiting bodies of fungi, and fungi are not plants but have a kingdom of their own.
  • Europe’s biggest mushroom was discovered in a Swiss National Park in 2004. The 1,000 year old fungus covers an area equivalent to around 100 football pitches.
  • A new report has shown that there is more to mushrooms than taste, convenience and versatility – they are also a superfood.
  • Some of the wonder drugs of today come from fungi. Statins control your cholesterol level to protect you from heart disease. Cyclosporin stops rejection in transplant patients. We still depend on penicillin, the wonder drug of the 1940s – all from fungi.
  • The largest living organism ever found is a honey mushroom, Armillaria ostoyae. It covers 3.4 square miles of land in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, and it's still growing!
  • Some mushrooms are bioluminescent, and the jack-o'-lantern mushroom (Clitocybe illudens) can produce enough light to read by.
  • Mushrooms can be used for dyeing wool and other natural fibres. The chromophores of mushrooms are organic compounds and produce strong and vivid colours, and all colours of the spectrum can be achieved with mushroom dyes. Before the invention of synthetic dyes mushrooms were the primary source of textile dyes.