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Name: Anita A.
Status: Educator
Age: 40s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 2002
Question:
Why do mushrooms tend to grow in circles?


Replies:
Some mushrooms grow in circles, commonly called fairy rings, but most do not. Best guess on those that do is that the mycelium, the main body of the fungus, has spread uniformly outward from an original growth point, and that the fruiting bodies - visible mushrooms - are sprouting from new growth at the perimeter. The original growth point might have been an old tree stump, for example. Some of these fungi persist for dozens, to hundreds, of years, rings becoming so large they are not easily noticed to be rings.

J. Elliott


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