Fungi and Disease
Fungi cause about 100,000 diseases of plants, including about 70 percent of the major crop diseases, resulting in an economic loss of billions of dollars each year. These plant pathogens cause extensive disease to seeds, seedlings, mature plants, and aging plants, resulting in decreased growth and reproduction of crop plants. Fungi also attack [...]

Forms of Fungi
Mushrooms
Mushroom is a family of fungi with gills, but in popular usage any of the larger fleshy or woody fungi. The application of the term mushroom is  to edible species only and the term toadstool to those considered poisonous or otherwise objectionable has no scientific basis. For example, two poisonous fungi may be [...]

Structure of Fungi
Most fungi are composed of threadlike tubular filaments called hyphae. Each individual hypha is surrounded by a fairly rigid wall usually made of chitin—the same material that forms the exoskeletons of insects. Hyphae that are partitioned by dividing cross walls are called septate hyphae, and hyphae without cross walls are called nonseptate hyphae. [...]

“Feeding” in Fungi
Fungi lack chlorophyll, the green pigment that enables plants to make their own food. Consequently, fungi cannot synthesize their own food the way plants do. In order to feed, fungi release digestive enzymes that break down food outside their bodies. The fungus then absorbs the dissolved food through its cell walls.
Depending as they [...]

Characteristics of Fungi
Fungus is a diverse group of organisms that—unlike plants and animals—obtain food by absorbing nutrients from an external source. The fossil record suggests that fungi were present 550 million years ago and may have evolved even earlier. Today thousands of different types of fungi grow on and absorb food from substances such as [...]