Urban fungi

On Friday I was walking from Union Station to the #60 bus stop when I spied something a little out of the ordinary. There was a mushroom growing in the few inches of bare ground between the sidewalk and a parking garage.


At first I just walked past, but then I thought, wait a minute, I don't remember the last time I saw a mushroom growing in downtown Chicago! So I stopped and took a picture of it, much to the bewilderment of the passers-by.

We know very little about fungi compared to plants and animals. The mushrooms that we see are like the tip of the iceberg- mushrooms are just the reproductive, spore-spreading structures for a vast below-ground network of fungi. I think this one probably immigrated with the mulch that you can see at the base.

I hope it goes without saying, but I'll add that I have no idea what kind of mushroom this is and therefore you should not eat it.