Armillaria gallica is a species of honey mushroom in the family Physalacriaceae. It is a common and ecologically important wood-decay fungus that can feed on dead organic material in soil, or live as an opportunistic parasite in weakened tree hosts to cause root or butt rot. It is found in temperate regions of Asia, North America, and Europe. The yellow-brown mushrooms, covered with small scales, can grow to around 10 cm (4 in) in diameter. On the underside of the caps are gills that are white to creamy or pale orange. The fungus has been the subject of considerable scientific research into its role as a plant pathogen, its ability to bioluminesce, its unusual life cycle, and its ability to form large and long-lived colonies. A 1,500-year-old colony was discovered in the early 1990s in a Michigan forest, reported to cover an area of 15 hectares (37 acres) and weigh at least 9,500 kilograms (21,000 lb); as a tourist attraction called the "humungous fungus", it inspires an annual mushroom-themed festival in Crystal Falls.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillaria_gallica
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1009:
The first known record of the name of Lithuania appeared in an entry in the annals of the Quedlinburg Abbey in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Lithuania
1842:
Francisco Lopez woke from a nap under a tree at Rancho San Francisco and made the first documented discovery of gold in California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_San_Francisco
1910:
A massive seventeen-month-long strike action, which at its peak involved 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers across 65 mines, began in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmoreland_County_coal_strike_of_1910%E2%80%9311
1925:
The Royal Air Force began a bombardment and strafing campaign against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink%27s_War
1956:
In Tbilisi, Georgia, Soviet military troops suppressed mass demonstrations against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's de- Stalinization policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Georgian_demonstrations
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
retrench: 1. (transitive) To cut down or reduce. 2. (transitive, specifically) To terminate the employment of a worker to reduce the size of a workforce; to make redundant. 3. (transitive, military) To furnish with a retrenchment (a defensive work within a fortification). 4. (intransitive) To abridge; to curtail. 5. (intransitive) To take up a new defensive position. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retrench
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
I could feel the hackles on the back of my neck stiffening and I knew he felt the same way. Dog was meeting dog. Nobody knew it but the dogs and they weren't telling. He was bigger than I thought. The suggestion of power I had seen in his photographs was for real. When he moved it was with the ponderous grace of some jungle animal, dangerously deceptive, because he could move a lot faster if he had to. When we were ten feet away he pretended to see us for the first time and a wave of charm washed the cautious expression from his face and he stepped out to greet Dulcie with outstretched hand. But it wasn't her he was seeing. It was me he was watching. I was one of his own kind. I couldn't be faked out and wasn't leashed by the proprieties of society. I could lash out and kill as fast as he could and of all the people in the room, I was the potential threat. I knew what he felt because I felt the same way myself. --Mickey Spillane https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mickey_Spillane