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news & views by texting 'OXFORD NEWS' to 80360 or email Although
fungi can be found throughout the year in a wide variety of
habitats, it is perhaps with woodland (and at this time of year)
that most people associate mushrooms and toadstools. Indeed,
many species of fungi have essential symbiotic relationships
with trees, both providing and receiving nutrition, in
mutuality, to the extent that neither can survive without the
other. This goes further, with particular fungus having an
exclusive association with particular species of tree. The Fungi
kingdom is thought to contain more than 800,000 species, ranging
across over four hundred families. The main body of any fungus
comprises a mass of tiny thread-like hypha that network through
the soil, trunk of a living tree or in dead wood. These
organisms can be thousands of years old and vast in size,
dwarfing all other living things on the planet. The terms
mushroom and toadstool refer to the fruiting