Fairy Rings

My friends and I used to jump into fairy rings when we were young and make a wish.

Once upon a time they were believed to have been created by elves or fairies dancing in a circle. Nowadays they serve as a reminder that the fruiting body of a mushroom is only one part of the organism as the mycelia are all underground. They can get over 30 feet wide but fungi can get even bigger than that, a gigantic honey fungus in Oregon in the USA has grown to over 3.4 square miles and is over 2400 years old. The huge part is all underground of course and the only visible part is the mushrooms which sprout up in the autumn.