Shrooms

[Tweek]

Originally Posted By Rils

As far as I recall, Teledahn has 5 species of mushrooms: Great Shrooms, pink shrooms, teal shrooms, the purpley brackets, and... I can't seem to remember the fifth offhand, I think it was a little round-capped variety.

Any mycologists out there interested in categorizing them? Of course they won't necessarily correspond to Earth species, but maybe base on observations we can at least get them to the Family level of taxonomy.

ps - how do we post pics here?

[Tweek]

Originally Posted By slightperil

The wind levels in Teledahn seem to have increased and there are now more spores falling outside of the Great Shrooms.

This has led me to think about breeding in relation to the Shrooms. Are the increased amounts of spores a breeding mechanism of the Shrooms? It’s something we see from plants here on Earth, using the wind to distribute seeds, etc. This would be an effective way for the Shrooms to breed with Shrooms on nearby islands and maintain a good gene pool.

[Tweek]

Originally Posted By slightperil

Ok, im not so sure about the wind thing, may not be true after all. However what i said about the reproduction still stands, is that how the Shrooms would breed?

[Tweek]

Originally Posted By Quaxo

I'm not sure - I'm no mycologist - but perhaps all the shrooms we see are actually the product of asexual reproduction? How does a mushroom get fertilized anyway? Or do the spores of different types join together and become a new adult? Do mushrooms work like fungal mycetes? That is, do hyphae extend out, and where two hyphae of opposing "type" meet, there is sexual reproduction? Wow. I really need to read up on mushrooms. :ermm:

[Tweek]

Originally Posted By Rils

It's been awhile since I did anything with mushrooms, but I do remember this - what we see as mushrooms are actually the fruiting bodies of an otherwise underground hyphae network. Normally the hyphae go merrily along, branching out and growing, and due to whatever particular stimulus (typically moisture related to seasonal changes, I believe), they grow the fruiting bodies to release spores.

What I don't really remember is how fertilization occures, or if it even does. I've been looking everywhere for my non-vascular plants texts, they seem to have gotten lost in the post-college moving around. I imagine it's slightly different for the different classes of fungi though (which are generally seperated by differences in reproductive structures).

Slightperil, I believe you are right though, external spores would be the means for reproductive dispersal. What makes me curious is the internal part of the Great Shrooms - typically mushrooms aren't hollow! What about the spores which are constantly being dumped *inside* the shroom?

[Tweek]

Originally Posted By slightperil

Yes, I’d forgotten about mushrooms being an underground organism. I suppose the perfect example of this is the Armillaria ostoyae or honey mushroom. It’s the largest organism on earth as it stretches underground for 2,200 acres!
It could be that the Shrooms in fact are all the same plant? The organism could reasonably spread from one island to the next under the ocean floor.

Looking into spores a little they are produced by meiosis, so clearly the Shrooms must reproduce asexually. The single purpose of mushroom is to spread the plant, which is why mushrooms often last only a short time.

It would appear that the Shrooms in Teledahn are well past it and have been hollowed out and structurally stabilised by the D’ni. Maybe that’s why the spores fall inside? The Shrooms would never naturally be hollow, so when they are if affects the distribution of the spore. Maybe the D’ni knew this would happen and just liked the affect?

It explains the existence of smaller mushrooms inside the first Great Shroom

[Adrian]

Do we know or think that ALL the mushrooms in Teledahn are edible?
We know that in 9000 DE, that Teldahn was left to the Guild of Caterers. I always assumed it was just the mushrooms that were edible, but didn't know which kind. You don't think they would've been cooking up any of the fauna as well as flora, do you?
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Explorer - A'drian : Ki# - 1875976

[Slightperil]

Em, it's possible that they can be eaten, esp since Shroomie eats them.

I always thought the spores were the important part with regards to food? I'm not sure though
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[Simon Bitdiddle]

The sheer amount of machinery involved with this Age seems to beg the question as to what they were actually gathering.

Let's look at what we can see. We have a bucket system which automatically collects dumps something into a vacuum system.

Where that vacuum system leads is questionable, since the D'ni didn't leave maintenance panels which can be easily pried open or poked around in.

The amount and the rate that these mushrooms drop spores couldn't really equal the capacity that they've set themselves up for, unless the collapsed section beyond the bucket system was hooked into a harvesting system.

Actually, if you look at the malfunctioning portion of the machinery, it looks like it has some sort of rotating thingummy.

I'll grab some Ki photos tonight and see if we can puzzle this out.

[Slightperil]

It would be nice if someone could come up with some info on the Shrooms for the Wiki. Perhaps if we beat out the names and some of the ideas here then come up with some articles.

This really isn't my forte, so it'd be good if you guys could help out.
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[Luin]

A lot of stress experiments have been done to see if things like spores and fungi fragments are able to be transported in ocean water. First, we don't actually know if the seas of Teledahn are "salty" - my guess is they are, just becase Teledahn seems very much like earth in its water cycle (maybe I'm wrong here?). In which case, spores could last in dormant states for a considerable length of time - just a thought.

So, Teledahn appears to lack trees as we know them. Is it possible these fungi are the teledahn counterparts, reproducing for a long period of time?I would say the D'ni bred the mushrooms over a few years to get the best possible yield, but if your D'ni, you can do that in writing can't you?

The other thing I have wondered: My understanding is that spore production in mushrooms is typically sexual - so it takes two haploids. This reproduction results in the spores we see - diploid gametes. So while a lot of fungal reproduction is asexual (budding, fragmenting, making spores) there is a lot of energy going into reproduction in Teledahn when it comes to shrooms and a lot of this could be sexual, not asexual.
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"There is no better high than discovery." ~E. O. Wilson

[rebusquilla]

I'm a real amateur on mushrooms - I eat them with pleasure though and we have a lot of them here in sweden which I gladly take home and cook! But since this thread have been "sleeping" for a while and I've been to teledahn a lot lately, I would like to share my "observations" with you guys
First- the bracket. This pic I made to sharp but that's beacuse it only grows inside the darkness of the "hut-building". I see it as BLUE though.


Second - as for the spores: here one can see spores constantly falling from the gills on the giant mushroom. The falling spores inside the "hut-building" I suppose is coming from the bucket-machinery above. If the harvesting had been going on for a longer time, one can imagine the whole place being impregnated with spores

Third: as far as i can see the "Teal shroom" and the "Pink shroom" is similar, one subspecies to the other? It's just the colour on the caps that separate them.The caps look like a cake with glazing on, or like paint have flown down on them. Cake shroom? Glazed shroom? Paint shroom? Don't have the D'ni words though


Fourth: Pink and Teal shrooms are gilled

Fifth: For this one I suggest "Pin shroom" They have lightgreen/beige, or grey/beige stems, when older(?) they get rings on the stems

Sixth: as for the big mushroom, I would like to call it "Giant shroom" When young it have rings on a white/beige stem and the little pointy grey/brown cap is sitting above a smaller part of the stem.


Seventh: The Blue bracket grows only inside the "hut-building", all the others grow in the water or on rocks, indoors and outdoors, everywhere in the age.
Eight: When examining Sharper's office I got to think that the mushrooms there was a kind of decoration

Ok, that's it!
rebus
/EDIT : now I see that the pics didn't show as clickable thumbs, but I leave this for time being, and come back later to change the pics
/EDIT: sorry, couldn't make them thumbs, or in spoilertags so this is what you get