In Oregon 190 species of mushrooms are collected for decorative purposes. 100
are collected for food(There maybe an additional 100-200) and 20 are collected
for medicinal usage.

Mushrooms are the flagship member of the Fifth Kingdom. molds, lichens & slime molds are also in this kingdom. On earth, they have adapted to a variety of different niches: forests, deadfall, insects, trees, pine cones, branches, riparian river ecosystems, other mushrooms, grasslands, manure, piles, boxes filled with wet straw and SMS(Spent Mushroom Substrates)asphalt roads, hair, books. The one about a house is one of my favorite Paul Stamets stories- in fact anything that touches the soil, in time will be consumed by a fungus with the help of other de-composers such as beetles, mites & worms.

Unless we are talking about a bone-dry desert without any plants or an ice sheet, mushrooms-the reproductive organ of an underground mycelial network will fruit in
a variety of habitats or ecosystems: human and otherwise. As a mushroom cap expands, millions of spores will fall from the gills. Some will be carried by breezes and some will not fall far from the parent mushroom. The spores that do land on hardwood chips, bits of straw and/or compost, on the ground- will germinate quickly depending on the conditions.

Spores germinate into hyphae which becomes mycelium and eventually primordia-which is the embryonic stage of a mushroom Spores are like seeds, but instead of roots, they have hyphae. These tiny threads travel through the soil and a dizzying array of other substrates. Through the tip of the myc, secrete powerful substances that can break-down a variety of earth-bound organic matter.