To Pliny the fungus had to be reckoned as one of the 'greatest of the marvels of nature', since it 'belonged to a class of things that spring up spontaneously and cannot be grown from seed.' It was surely 'among the most wonderful of all things' in that it could 'spring up and live without a root.' Until the invention of the microscope the function of the spore, produced by each fungus in its millions, could not be appreciated. The mushroom has, indeed, no seed in the accepted sense, germinating and giving out a root and later a stem apex with or without seed leaves. The walls of each minute spore extrude to form thread-like tubes which branch further until all mass together to form the spongy flesh of the fungus. The result is neither animal nor vegetable, and the mystery of its proper classification persisted until relatively modern times. Thus a sixteenth-century naturalist wrote: 'They are a sort of intermediate existence between plants and inanimate nature. In this respect fungi resemble zoophytes, which are intermediate between plants and animals.' \r\n\r\nOne explanation for the creation of the mushroom without apparent seed was that the 'womb' had been fertilized by thunder, since it was commonly observed that the fungi appeared after thunderstorms. Thus one name given them was Ceraunion, from the Greek keraunios, 'thunderbolt.' Another was the Greek hudnon, probably derived from Sumerian UD-NUN, 'storm-seeded.' \r\n\r\nIt was thus uniquely-begotten. The normal process of fructifacation had been by-passed. The seed had not fallen from some previous plant, to be nurtured by the earth until in turn it produced a root and stalk. The god had 'spoken' and his creative 'word' had been carried to earth by the storm-wind, angelic messenger of heaven, and been implanted directly into the volva. The baby that resulted from this divine union was thus the 'Son of God', more truly representative of its heavenly father than any other form of plant or animal life. Here, in the tiny mushroom, was God manifest, the 'Jesus' born of the Virgin 'the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation...in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell...' (Col 1:15).

• classification
• plants
• creation
• mushrooms
• virgin birth
• myth
• history
• herbology