In article ,
Kay Easton writes:
|
| Are truffles 'plants'?
|
| I have no idea of their current status! ISTR when I was a kid, they were
| regarded as plants, but aren't they now regarded as something entirely
| separate? So I thought they were 'plants' rather than plants ;-)

Yes. They are regarded as a separate kingdom, just like plants
and animals. Some of the things that were rolled into the 'plant'
kingdom have been separated off even more drastically, though I
forget the terms for the levels higher than kingdom.

As I recall, all multi-cellular organisms are now classified as
plants, animals, fungi or slime moulds, but with a few oddities
like the probable composite organism Euglena.

| I know they're not animals!

Paradoxically, you are nearly wrong :-)

DNA evidence confirms that fungi are slightly more closely related
to animals than either is to plants. The bichemists had suspected
that for decades. So you could reasonably classify them as animals,
if you move the division up a bit!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.