Thomas Hill, age of Phoenix, Az,,

What is a fairy ring?

If you are very, very lucky, you have a fairy ring right on your lawn, The next best thing is to find one in a meadow, The ring is a circle of round, pale mushrooms, standing like fairy beach umbrellas among the green, dewy grass. If the circle is a big one, the fairy ring has been there a long, long time, Some of them are 400 years old.

Mushrooms have no green chlorophyll with which to make plant food so they must depend upon the food made by other plants. They thrive in soil which is rich with decaying materials and favorite food is rotting tree stump. Long after the tree is dead and buried, the mushrooms thrive on its rotting wood. The little round mushrooms pop up in a circle around the edges and together they form a fairy ring.