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Is this the largest organism in the world?
This 2,400-acre (9.7 km2) site in eastern Oregon
had a contiguous growth of mycelium
estimated at 1,665 football fields in size
and 2,200 years old, this one fungus has killed the forest
above it several times over, and in so doing has built deeper soil layers
that allow the growth of ever-larger stands of trees.
Mushroom-forming forest fungi are unique
in that their mycelial mats can achieve
such massive proportions.
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~ from Wikipedia
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Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome.
It's true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears
above the ground lasts only a single summer.
Then it withers away - an ephemeral apparition.
When we think of the unending growth and decay of life
and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity.
Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives
and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom,
which passes. The rhizome remains.
~ Carl Jung
from Memories, Dreams, Reflections
