Plant Science: Fungi

Dictionary of the fungi -- Systematic arrangement.

The Kingdom Fungi provides a comprehensive look at the biology, structure, and morphological diversity of these necessary organisms. It sheds light on their ecologically important roles in nature, their fascinating relationships with people, plants, and animals, and their practical applications in the manufacture of food, beverages, and pharmaceuticals. The book includes information about "true" fungi, fungus-like creatures (slime molds and water molds), and a group of "composite" organisms (lichens) that are more than just fungi. Particular attention is given to examples of fungi that might be found in the home and encountered in nature.

Lichens -- Great Lakes Region (North America) Identification.

Now that issues of mold in the home and
consequent illnesses are a hot topic, it’s
quite timely for Money, an internationally
reputed botanist, to be writing with great
verve about various molds and related
organisms. A forest carpeted with mushrooms; dandruff; athlete’s foot; and killer diseases that attack the lungs and nervous system all come under Money’s expert scrutiny as he reveals the realm of fungi in all its amazing diversity.

Wood decaying fungi can cause phytosanitary problems in orchards, forest eco-systems, park and roadside trees especially under stressful ecological conditions, as a result of aging or reduced agrotechnical control (pruning, irrigation, fertilization, protective measures), which negatively affect general growth and reduce mechanisms of resistance. The phytosanitary problems caused by wood decaying fungi should be studied in relation to landscape characteristics, as infections can be transferred from forest ecosystems, park and roadside trees to orchards and in reverse. This is of significance in mountain or hillside orchards. Therefore, it is necessary to study simultaneously, species, level of parasitic activity and conditions of growth of wood decaying fungi in orchard, forest, park and roadside trees. Thus a comprehensive and successful control system may be developed. This book contains valuable information about wood decaying fungi as a specific group of organisms – about their biological and ecological characteristics, species, classification, etc. It is aimed at agronomists, foresters, landscape designers, environmentalists, biologists and ecologists who may be interested in studying these areas.

Marine fungi play a major role in marine and mangrove ecosystems. Understanding how higher fungi with their spectrum of cellulolytic and ligninolytic enzymes degrade wood tissue, while labyrinthuloids and thraustochytrids further contribute to the dissolved organic matter entering the open ocean is essential to marine ecology. This work provides an overview of marine fungi including morphology and ultrastructure, phylogeny, biogeography and biodiversity. Increasingly, biotechnology is also turning to these organisms to develop new bioactive compounds and to address problems such as decomposition of materials in the ocean and bioremediation of oil spills. These potential applications of marine fungi are also treated. In the light of massive marine oil spills in the past years, the importance of understanding marine fungi and their role in the food chain cannot be underestimated

This completely revised second edition provides all the information necessary to identify mushrooms in the field in the midcontinental region of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin: the tallgrass prairies and the western parts of the eastern deciduous forests. The first edition has been improved in significant ways. The authors have updated scientific names, added photos where there were none and replaced poor photos with better ones, improved the keys, added some species and deleted others, added a section on truffles, and annotated the bibliography. There were originally 224 species; now there are 248. Some of the new photos—125 in all—serve as a second photo for a species, where it is helpful to show details that cannot be viewed in a single photo. The authors describe each species'cap, gills, stalk, annulus, and season when it is most likely to be seen as well as such characteristics as edibility and toxicity. In their detailed and lively introduction they discuss the economic and environmental aspects of fungi, basic mushroom biology, nomenclature, edibility and toxicity, and habitats and time of fruiting. Most important are the keys, which lead the dedicated reader to the major groups of fungi included in this guide. The section on mushrooms includes keys to their genera in addition to the species within each family discussed, and each of the subsequent sections has a key to the genera and species except where so few species are discussed that a key is not necessary. The volume also includes a glossary and two bibliographies, one with general and one with technical references. Through their detailed technical descriptions and captivating color photos the authors convey their passionate fondness for these diverse and colorful organisms, whose mysterious appearances and disappearances have long made them objects of fascination.