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Thu 27 Mar, 2003 09:37 am
Fungi are not plants.
Living things are organized for study into large, basic groups called kingdoms. Fungi were listed in the Plant Kingdom for many years. Then scientists learned that fungi show a closer relation to animals, but are unique and separate life forms. Now, Fungi are placed in their own Kingdom.
It is a hidden kingdom. The part of the fungus that we see is only the “fruit” of the organism. The living body of the fungus is a mycelium made out of a web of tiny filaments called hyphae. The mycelium is usually hidden in the soil, in wood, or another food source. A mycelium may fill a single ant, or cover many acres. The branching hyphae can add over a half mile (1 km) of total length to the mycelium each day. These webs live unseen until they develop mushrooms, puffballs, truffles, brackets, cups, “birds nests,” “corals” or other fruiting bodies. If the mycelium produces microscopic fruiting bodies, people may never notice the fungus.
Been looking thru your fridge again, slappy?
7 categories and sub-categories are:
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
No doubt, Slappy Doo, no doubt.
c.i.
Oh that mycelium, natures sinewy workhorse.
My husband is allergic to all fungi, so I've caught a certain dread and terror from him. (He's allergic to the point of death if he ingests or breathes too much fungi/ spores.) I still eat blue cheese, on occasion, but I almost never have mushrooms, and they've taken on this whole dark dank mucky underworldish cast that makes 'em rather unappetizing, even though I'm not in the least allergic. That's part of why when I read about a many-acre mycelium I start hearing horror movie music in the background, and get a visual of a little innocent house being slowly, slowly overcome by the creeping goo...
Heeven, it takes a big person to admit to taking a hard drug like that.
Bravo.
it is the notion of the little, fungified ant body that gets me. watched one too many nature programs - saw it happen. nature is ROUGH!
ok, the acres of smegging mycelium is a bit of a worry, too.
fungus gonna get us all in the end.
When my daughter was two, she went out into the yard after a rainy night and immediately started to eat the funny white puffy things poping up in the grass. We rushed her to a pediatric poison center where they pumped her stomach and then stuffed her full of charcoal. What a mess that was...
That happens to me every weekend. You get used to it.
Thanks Heeven. I feel much better knowing I wasn't alone with the "involuntary charcoal ingestion" diet.
Damn tequilla.
They told me it WAS tequilla ... oh well
Besides ... you think I'd look this good sans mushrooms and charcoal? I think not buddy. I work hard for this body and face!
hey heeven, went to the zoo and saw your family. how do you all bend your knees backwards like that?
Stumble It!
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