All mushrooms are fungi, but not all fungi are mushrooms! The word mushroom refers to the fruiting body of certain fungi that can be seen by the naked eye and picked by hand. Mushrooms can grow from many different substrates and occupy many different ecological niches. There are countless different shapes, colors, and morphological characteristics that mushrooms express. Many times mushrooms have a very short lifespan so they can be difficult to study in the field. A mushroom is only one piece of the larger fungal life cycle.