Mushroom - agarics | Agaricus | Agaricus bisporus | Ascomycota | Puffball Stinkhorn Morel

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting bodies of a fungus, typically produced above the ground floor or in their food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus ) and gills (lamellae, sing. foil) or pores on the underside of the lid.

"Mushroom" describes a variety of gilled fungi, with or without stems, and the term is used more generally to describe both the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota and the woody or leathery fruiting bodies of some Basidiomycota, depending on the context of the word.

The forms that deviate from the normal morphology usually have more specific names, such as "wolf fart", "stinkhorn" and "Morel", and gilled mushrooms themselves are often called "agarics" in reference to his similarity to Agaricus or Agaricales place. By extension, the term "mushroom" can designate the entire fungus when in culture, the thallus (called a mycelium) of species forming the fruiting bodies called mushrooms, or the species itself.