"Franz Heymann" wrote in message ...
"Rusty Hinge" wrote in message
...
The message
from "Franz Heymann" contains these
words:

I thought it was established that fungi inhabit a completely separate
phylum.

Then I am, as usual, behind the times.
Thanks for the information.
Is it still thought that the whole fungus is in fact one enormous single
cell?

The whole mycelium and any fruit bodies attached are one (sometimes)
enormous clone.

Never was believed to be a single cell though. The whole clone may cover
acres and weigh a great deal - (allegedly) the world's heaviest living
organism is a clone of honey fungus in IIRC Canada.

How interesting. I wish I had not thrown away my book on edible and
inedible fungi. I did it when I realised that I simply did not have the
courage to pick and eat a fungus described in the book and "recognised" by
me. Except for Jew's ear and giant puff balls. It is impossible to mistake
them.

My own feelings entirely! A friend once found an unexpected flush of
mushrooms in the back garden of a house we rented, and treated himself
to a huge meal of steak and mushrooms. After a while he started
feeling a bit funny in the guts, and finally went to bed very sorry
for himself, leaving a note on the kitchen table saying "I have eaten
'mushrooms' from the garden". Slightly to his surprise he woke the
next morning to find himself entirely alive, and was obliged to
conclude that his symptoms had resulted from a combination of
over-imagination and over-eating.

Some universities, botanical gardens, and county naturalist trusts do
public Fungus Forays in the autumn, though: being shown by an expert
must be the only sensible way to learn.

I received a rowlocking on another ng about a year ago for the
misdemeanour of suggesting that fungi were plants: they certainly
weren't animals or minerals, I reasoned. But I too was out of date: I
checked in a school biology book, and found that, during my
forty-plus-years' absence of mind, life on Earth had indeed very
creatively divided itself into several new categories. But I did know
that they didn't have cells: the adhesive bit of my education had left
me knowing what "vascular" meant.

This enormous clone business: isn't it also true that a hillside
covered with bracken may sometimes actually be covered by a single
plant?

Mike.