Magical and Mysterious: Discover the Diverse World of Mushrooms

Stuffed, roasted, as a soup, on a pasta, mushrooms are versatile additions to dishes across the globe. In fact, our human experience with mushrooms dates back thousands of years, including references from China, Africa, Greece, and Rome. But most of us today only know mushrooms as the few edible types we find sitting in the vegetable isle or on the “exotic” food shelf of every supermarket. However, mushrooms and their biological relatives come in a world of fascinating varieties.

The diversity of what exists out there is definitely awe-inspiring. Mushrooms come in spectacular shapes, grow in secretive places, and can be found in a number of explosive colors. As mushrooms are natural recyclers of our forests, they actually are almost as diverse on their own as the entire animal kingdom. As most of us only know the limited variety of edible mushrooms that are found in supermarkets, we often miss the beauty that mushrooms in the wild, both edible and non-edible types, have to offer the world.

Here are a few of the world’s most magical mushrooms: