Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of mycelium fungus colonies growing in soil and rotting vegetation, and often forming mycorrhizal associations with tree roots.
Many trees absorb most of their minerals thanks to fungus, which trade the minerals for the sugars made by the trees using photosynthsis.
When early American pioneers went west, to the Great Plains, they often took bare-roots trees (roots dipped in wax) with them to plant but, with rare exception, these trees failed to thrive due to lack of appropriate mycelium in the new soil. Only when eastern soil rich with fungus was moved with the saplings did the new trees survive.
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