Fruiting body

A fruiting body is a fungal structure that produces and releases spores. Mushrooms, puffballs, and bracket fungi are familiar examples.

Hypha: A threadlike fungal filament that grows through a substrate or contributes to a larger structure. Interwoven hyphae build the tissues of many fruiting bodies.
Fungus: A eukaryotic organism in the kingdom Fungi, obtaining nutrients by absorption and often reproducing with spores. A fruiting body is one structure produced by a fungus, not the whole organism.
Agaric: A mushroom with a cap and gills on its underside, where spores are produced. Agarics show the classic cap-and-gill form of a fruiting body.
Mushroom cultivation: The controlled production of edible or medicinal mushrooms by growing fungal mycelium and inducing fruiting. Cultivation manages conditions that trigger and sustain fruiting bodies.
Vegetative growth: The growth of an organism that increases or maintains its body rather than producing reproductive structures. Fruiting is reproductive growth, unlike the fungus's continuing resource-gathering growth.
Hymenium: The spore-producing tissue layer lining structures such as gills, pores, or cup interiors. This fertile surface bears the cells that produce spores.
Fungal tissue: Organized masses of fungal cells or hyphae that form structures within a fungal organism. Fruiting bodies are assembled from fungal tissues with distinct roles.
Puffball: A roughly spherical fungus that releases spores from an enclosed interior when mature. Puffballs produce spores inside the fruiting body rather than on exposed gills.
Edible mushroom: A mushroom considered suitable for human consumption, subject to correct identification and preparation. Many foods called mushrooms are harvested fruiting bodies.
Sclerotium: A compact, hardened mass of fungal tissue that stores resources and survives unfavorable conditions. A sclerotium is a survival structure, not itself a spore-producing fruiting body.

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