Witches circles: mysticism or the laws of nature

Have you ever met a mysterious circle in the forest, formed by mushrooms, inside which grass does not grow? A perfectly even circle with a diameter of up to several meters, along the perimeter of which a string of mushrooms grow, can alert any lover to walk through the forest. And in the Middle Ages, such formations caused fear and horror, they were ignored and associated with the manifestation of dark forces.

Witch circles, or fairies, can be found in dense forests around the world. Numerous references to mushroom circles are found in English folklore. Folk legends and tales tell of troubles that people connected with the places where mushroom circles appeared: the disappearance of people or animals, meetings with evil spirits and other misfortunes.

It is interesting that such circles form both edible and poisonous mushrooms: champignons, morels, chanterelles, black breasts, fly agarics, govorushki and many others.

The times when everything was explained by the tricks of the elves and fairies have sunk into oblivion, and scientists have seriously begun to study this issue. It was possible to find that the diameter of the circle increases every year, by about 20-30 centimeters, and the growth of the mushroom ring can continue as long as you like. Such circles can be found only in remote places. In the same places where mushroom pickers and berry pickers prettyly trample the forest in search of wild plants, circles of fairies, as a rule, do not occur.

The answer was simple. It’s all about the nature of the mushrooms and how they grow. Mushrooms are only the upper part of a huge organism, visible to the eye. They form a separate kingdom and do not belong to plants, as many believe. In the soil or other substrate, mycelium is located - the vegetative body of fungi, which has the appearance of the finest threads. At the ends of annual growth, fruiting bodies — fungi — form. The mycelium grows evenly in all directions, while the central part dies over time, and the mycelium acquires the shape of a circle, along the perimeter of which a new batch of fruiting bodies grows every year.

Interestingly, a similar process occurs only in those cases if the integrity of the mycelium has not been broken. In places where people or animals often go, the natural growth of the fungal organism is disturbed, regular circles are replaced by the usual accumulations of breasts and chanterelles.

Sometimes inside the circle there is a lack of grass or a small amount of grass compared to the surrounding forest. This phenomenon also found its explanation. It turned out that some types of mushrooms take a large amount of nutrients from the soil, so it is difficult for plants to survive there. A few years after moving the border of the mycelium, soil fertility is restored and grass grows there again.