The largest living organism in the world - it is a fungus

And not some kind of particularly rare. At stumps, you probably will not again met colonies of ordinary honey agaric (Armillaria ostoyae).

For your sake we hope that they reach the largest size of the officially registered copies. Growing in the National Reserve Malur, Oregon estimates of location-record holder covers an area of ​​890 hectares, and its age - somewhere between two and eight thousand years. Most of it is hidden from the eyes and under the earth in the form of massive litter usikopodobnoy white mycelium (mycelia) (equivalent of mushroom roots). Mycelium entangles tree roots, causing the death of endemic trees, and only occasionally breaks through the soil in the form of harmless small placer gold fungi.

Initially it was thought that the giant honey agaric in Oregon - a single cluster growing around the forest, but not so long ago, scientists agreed that we are dealing with the world's largest holistic organism that connects under the ground.

S. Fry, «The Book of General Ignorance»

via factroom.ru