mushroom is just the apple on the fungal tree

An example of an analogy used in public scienec discourse:

KF: "Mycelium is the main body of the fungus. It's the bit that grows, it's the bit that eats stuff, it's basically this network of threadlike filaments that branch and connect and mesh together to form this web,"

DOB: "So what we think of as mushrooms, they're just a fruit?"

KF: "that's just the apple on the tree."

Prof. Katie Field (Professor of Plant-Soil Processes at the University of Sheffield) was talking to Dara ó Briain on an episode ('Furnishing with Fungi') of 'Curious Cases'.

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Many examples of science analogies are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

'Threadlike' could be seen as a simile: the filaments are like threads. 'Eat' could be seen as a metaphor, as the process for obtaining nutrition (secreting chemicals to break down material outside the fungus, and then absorbing the pre-digested materials) is somewhat different from how we normally understand eating. The 'web' can also seen to be metaphorical, as resembling, in some ways, a spider's web.

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Many examples of science similes are listed in 'Creative Comparisons: Making Science Familiar through Language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.