In article , Anthony E Anson writes:
| The message
| from Kay Easton contains these words:

|
| Yes, but without fruit bodies, they don't spread.
|
| Do they not? Some other fungi spread asexually - dry rot, for example.
|
| The mycelium will work its way outwards, but that's not what I meant.
| That sort of spreading is very local and comes to a halt if the pH is
| wrong, or the tree cover changes, or if they come up to a road, or
| stream.
|
| Mycelial strands when they meet sometimes join and form fruit bodies.
| These give rise to spores which are microscopic, and when released into
| the air can travel on the wind anywhere in the world. Fungal spores have
| been detected in samples taken from high in the stratosphere.
|
| The chance that one will land somewhere conducive to growth in
| conditions which encourage it are the reciprocal of astronomical, which
| is why each fruit body produces so many millions of spores.

Yes. As with most such organisms, picking enough of the fruit over
a long enough period to significantly reduce its capacity CAN be
a problem. But only when it is limited by the success rate of its
seeds or spores, and not when it is limited by available habitats.

I believe that the majority of relevant fungi are almost entirely
habitat limited in the UK.

| But what I was referring to was that the Act says you mustn't dig up
| plants, not that you mustn't pick fruit.
|
| Fungi are not plants: they occupy a completely separate phylum.


Tell that to a lawyer :-) God alone knows what the House of Lords
would decide that fungi are.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.