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Agaricus bisporus

life science Maturity 11-13 Next article →

The mushroom known as Agaricus bisporus is a very important food.

2011-06-25 Agaricus bisporus 3 70149
2011-06-25 Agaricus bisporus 3 70149

You might know it by many different names. People often call white ones button mushrooms or champignon. Brown ones have names like cremini or chestnut mushrooms. When they are fully mature, they are called portobello mushrooms. This mushroom grows in grasslands across Eurasia and North America. It is grown in more than 70 countries around the world. It is one of the most eaten mushrooms on Earth.

This mushroom has a very interesting way it works. It grows in rich soil, compost, or manure.

The cap starts as a small dome shape. As it grows, the cap flattens out. Under the cap, there are many thin gills. These gills start out pink in young mushrooms. Later, they turn red-brown and finally dark brown. The stem is a cylinder shape with a ring. If you bruise the white flesh, it turns pinkish-red. The tiny spores it drops are dark brown.

Scientists have spent a long time studying this mushroom.

In 1871, Mordecai Cubitt Cooke first described it. Later, Jakob Emanuel Lange looked at it in 1926. In 1938, it became its own species. Finally, Emil Imbach gave it its current name. He named it after the genus was changed in 1946. The name bisporus refers to the two-spored basidia. This is a part of the mushroom that holds spores. Some special varieties in the desert have four spores instead.

There is a long history of growing these mushrooms.

In 1707, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort wrote about growing them. Early growers used to dig up wild mycelia. Mycelia are the underground parts of the fungus. This was hard because the crops often got sick. In 1893, the Pasteur Institute made pure culture spawn. This helped farmers grow much better crops. In 1925, a white mushroom was found by chance. It grew in a bed of brown mushrooms in Pennsylvania. This led to the white mushrooms we see today.

These mushrooms are very healthy for people to eat.

They are made of 92% water. They also have protein and carbohydrates. They provide many B vitamins like niacin and riboflavin. They also have minerals like potassium and phosphorus.

If you put them under UV light, they gain vitamin D. This is a very useful nutrient for the body. You must be careful in the wild, though. Some mushrooms like the destroying angel look similar. You can tell them apart by their white gills. The common mushroom has pink or brown gills instead.

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