What Is Mycelium?
Generally plants make their food by harnessing the suns energy and synthesising nutrients from carbon dioxide and water, a process we know as photosynthesis. In comparison animals hunt down their prey, or scavenge for food and digest it internally. Fungi do neither of these things. The mycelium grows underground and is the main body of the fungi. It looks like white threads and can often be seen in woodlands if you lift up a log. Some mycelium is thousands of years old and they can spread out underground covering whole forests. The mycelium grows around food sources secreting an enzyme that breaks it down. This is why fungi are known as the ultimate recyclers as they help break down all of the dead matter, recycling it back into valuable nutrients to feed themselves and other plants and animals. Given that the food source is broken down and digested externally this makes the way they digest food quite unique and therefore places them in their own special kingdom. Once the food has been digested the mycelium absorbs the digested nutrients and often exchanges some of these nutrients with other plants and trees that it forms a symbiotic relationship with.
