Autumn rains give rise to a multitude of toadstools.
Many species of mushroom seem to appear overnight. Although seen as plants by
many, mushrooms are actually the reproductive bodies of fungi and thus not
plants at all. All fungi belong to a large group of eukaryotic organisms that
also includes microorganisms (yeast and molds), separate from plants animals,
bacteria and protists like algae. Genetic research has shown that fungi are
closely related to animals and not to plants! Information I won't share with my
vegetarian friends by the way...
The word mushroom or toadstool is applied by most only
to the fleshy spore bearing part of the fungus. Most of these are known as
agaric mushrooms, recognisable by their stem (or stipe), a cap (or pileus) and
gills (lamellae). These form the quintessential toadstools of fairytales.
No comments:
Post a Comment