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Mushrooms, molds, and other fungi are not plants, despite similarities in their morphology and lifestyle. The historical classification of fungi as plants is defunct, and although they are still commonly included in botany curricula and textbooks, modern molecular evidence shows that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants .
Molds can also pose a hazard to human and animal health when they are consumed following the growth of certain mold species in stored food. Some species produce toxic secondary metabolites, collectively termed mycotoxins , including aflatoxins , ochratoxins , fumonisins , trichothecenes , citrinin , and patulin .
S. chartarum is a slow-growing mold that does not compete well with other molds. It is only rarely found in nature, sometimes being found in soil and grain, but is most often detected in cellulose -rich building materials, such as gypsum -based drywall and wallpaper from damp or water-damaged buildings.
Land plants evolved from a group of freshwater green algae, perhaps as early as 850 mya, [3] but algae-like plants might have evolved as early as 1 billion years ago. [2] The closest living relatives of land plants are the charophytes, specifically Charales; if modern Charales are similar to the distant ancestors they share with land plants, this means that the land plants evolved from a ...
The English word fungus is directly adopted from the Latin fungus (mushroom), used in the writings of Horace and Pliny. [10] This in turn is derived from the Greek word sphongos (σφόγγος 'sponge'), which refers to the macroscopic structures and morphology of mushrooms and molds; [11] the root is also used in other languages, such as the German Schwamm ('sponge') and Schimmel ('mold').
This rapid appearance of so many plant groups and growth forms has been called the "Devonian Explosion". The primitive arthropods co-evolved with this diversified terrestrial vegetation structure. The evolving co-dependence of insects and seed-plants that characterizes a recognizably modern world had its genesis in the late Devonian.
In contrast to plants and animals, the early fossil record of the fungi is meager. Factors that likely contribute to the under-representation of fungal species among fossils include the nature of fungal fruiting bodies , which are soft, fleshy, and easily degradable tissues and the microscopic dimensions of most fungal structures, which ...
Domestication of plants such as maize, rice, barley, wheat etc. has also been a significant driving force in their evolution. Some studies [ clarification needed ] have looked at the origins of the maize plant and found that maize is a domesticated derivative of a wild plant from Mexico called teosinte .