[Plant-education] Re: example fungi?
David R. Hershey
dh321 at excite.com
Sun Aug 28 19:13:19 EST 2005
1. Leaves, or other plant parts, with fungal diseases might be
collected on campus, in parks or in yards. Anthracnose of London plane
trees, maples, oaks, ash, dogwood and others; black spot of roses,
powdery mildew of lilacs and many other plants, black knot of cherry,
sooty mold, rusts, smuts, cankers, damping off, Armillaria root rot,
Verticillium wilt, Botrytis blight, chestnut blight and Dutch elm
disease just to name a few. Pirone's book describes lots of fungal
diseases of shade and ornamental trees.
John Richard Hartman, Thomas P. Pirone, Mary Ann Sall, T. P. Pirone,
and Pascal Pompey Pirone. 2000. Pirone's Tree Maintenance. Oxford
Bad Fungi: The Number One Rose Problem
Your local cooperative extension service may be able to tell you what
fungal diseases are in season in your area. You might check with your
campus landscape maintenance department or any person who grows or
maintains plants for a living such as greenhouse growers, fruit tree
growers, golf course managers, etc. They have all had to deal with
plant fungal diseases.
2. Lichens are often found on bark and rocks.
3. Toadstools, mushrooms, and fairy rings are common in lawns or
4. Bracket or shelf fungi are common on trees. They are used in
5. If you dig around a pine, spruce, fir, oak, birch and some other
trees you can probably find some ectomycorrhizae, which are
morphologically different from normal roots. You might be able to buy
ectomycorrhizae in plastomounts (clear resin).
6. Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) is a native wildflower that lacks
chlorophyll. It depends on mycorrhizal fungus to "steal" food from a
photosynthetic tree. It is correctly termed a mycoheterotroph or
mycoheterophyte. It is still often incorrectly termed a saprophyte.
7. There are several foods and beverages that contain fungi and fungi
that are foods such as mushrooms from the supermarket.
Fungi In Manufacturing of Food
Brewing Root Beer
Beverages and Foods from Fungi: Wine and Beer
8. The fungus, Gibberella fujikuroi, is the commercial source of the
plant hormone gibberellic acid, which has several food uses including
beer making and increasing the size of the seedless grapes sold in
David R. Hershey
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