This morning, while pouring a bowl of my favorite cereal (Millville's Honey Crunch 'n Oats--it is the absolute best AND $1.49 for 14.5 oz at ALDI)
I noticed the back, "Food for Thought: Trivial Information for the Breakfast Table." As a kid I LOVED to read the back and sides of the cereal boxes. As an adult, most of the boxes are pretty lame these days. HOWEVER, today I learned something intriguing! SO, as my husband would say, "So this is interesting..." my cereal box tells me,
"The largest living organism ever found is a honey mushroom, Armillaria ostoyae. It covers 3.4 square miles of land in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, and it's still growing."
The skeptic that I am said, "Yeah, right" as I envisioned a gigantic mushroom that looked like it walked out of "Honey, I Blew Up the Baby." So I googled it and this is what I found,
HUMUNGUS FUNGUS: To go into the forest where this giant makes its home you would not look at it and see a huge, looming mushroom. Armillaria grows and spreads primarily underground and the sheer bulk of this organism lies in the earth, out of sight. Occasionally, during the fall season, this specimen will send up golden-colored "honey mushrooms" (see photo, above left) that are the visible evidence of its hulking mass beneath. Scientists have not yet begun to attempt to estimate the weight of this specimen of Armillaria.
Is that not crazy! and the mushrooms themselves ARE huge check it out:
I'm going to have to start reading the cereal boxes more often!
