City Science Kids Reporting from Provincetown, Cape Cod

Last weekend, we found this absolutely massive mushroom in the sand dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where we were picking wild cranberries (more about that later).

This mushroom looks like some kind of bolete (although we don't know for certain). Surprised that mushrooms can grow in the sand? So were we the first time we encountered them—last year, in fact, when we were picking wild cranberries in this same spot. It was our guess that some of the mushrooms we saw were fungal partners for the cranberry bushes. That is, mushrooms that help the cranberries to grow and in return, get sugars and other nutrients from the cranberry bushes.

There's so much scientists still don't know about mushrooms, even scientists who study them all the time. You can learn a little about mushrooms from this past episode of CSK. And from this article I wrote for the magazine Odyssey about mushrooms that glow. Check them out!