By some accounts, mushrooms (or rather, fungi) have been around for six hundred million years ago, even before plants emerged. They have their own kingdom, separate from both plants and animals because their biology is so different from both groups.

What we ordinarily call a ‘mushroom’ is just the fruiting body of the mushroom. The rest of the mushrooms’ life cycle is characterized by vegetative mycelial growth and asexual spore production. Believe it or not, mushroom blooming is quite the sight — except we’re not there to see it most of the time.

The timelapse was originally posted by Next Observer, as far as I can find. It became viral on several Facebook pages over the past year, but let’s face it, not everyone hangs on Facebook pages nowadays. So if you want to get your shroomy fix, it’s the best place to start. If you’re looking for more, check out our previous articles on the wonderful mushroom photographs of Steve Axford.