Word Finder - fungus

definition

Any member of the kingdom Fungi; a eukaryotic organism typically having chitin cell walls but no chlorophyll or plastids. Fungi may be unicellular or multicellular.

definition

A spongy, abnormal excrescence, such as excessive granulation tissue formed in a wound.

Grapes attacked by the fungus; the fruit becomes black, hard and shrivelled.

Oranges and pears are seriously damaged by insect and fungus pests.

The fungus assails all the green parts of the vine, and injures the leaves and young shoots as much as it does the grape itself.

The fungus attacks injured roots.

The fungus is cut into slices and then steeped in a solution of nitre.

Amadou is prepared on the continent of Europe, chiefly in Germany, but the fungus is a native of Britain.

Every time a carpenter saws fresh timber with a saw recently put through wood attacked with dry-rot, he risks infecting it with the Fungus; and similarly in pruning, in propagating by cuttings, &c.

Experience with epidemics, dearly bought in the past, has shown that one fruitful cause is the laying open to the inroads of some Fungus or insect, hitherto leading a quiet endemic life in the fields and forests, large tracts of its special food, along which it may range rampant without check to its dispersal, nutrition and reproduction.

They are branches in which a perennial Fungus (Aecidium, Exoascus, &c.) has obtained a hold.

The fungus thus clearly takes the upper hand in the association.

The insects cultivate their fungus, weeding out.

The development of this fungus is greatly promoted by the presence of decaying stumps and wood in the plantation.

Fructification of the fungus, entire and in section; the latter shows the asci containing ascospores, much enlarged.

The fungus is most conspicuous on the grapes, but the leaves and stems From Hartig's Lehrbuch der Pfanzenkrankheiten, by permission of Julius Springer.

The latter is the more serious, as in addition to the actual damage done by the beetle the holes afford entrance to fungus spores, &c. Under the name " horn worms " are included the larvae or caterpillars of species of Protoparce.

The dried dung of the llama (taquia) is generally used as fuel, as in pre-Spanish times, for roasting ores, as also a species of grass called ichu (Stipa incana), and a singular woody fungus, called yareta (Azorella umbellifera), found growing on the rocks at elevations exceeding 12,000 ft.

A fungus was isolated from the leaf lesions and stem and stolon cankers.

The exports are copra, fungus and straw hats, which the women plait very cleverly.

They mark the area of growth of some fungus, starting from a centre of one or more plants.

The mycelium produced from the spores dropped by the fungus or from the "spawn" in the soil, radiates outwards, and each year's successive crop of fungi rises from the new growth round the circle.

The fungus was never found growing within the circle during the time the ring was under observation, the decaying vegetation necessary for its growth having become exhausted.

Barley is liable to smut and the other fungus diseases which attack wheat, and the insect pests which prey on the two plants are also similar.

The spores formed on the delicate grey mould are carried during the summer from one plant to another, thus spreading the disease, and also germinate in the soil where the fungus may remain passive during the winter producing a new crop of spores next spring, or sometimes attacking the scales of the bulbs forming small black hard bodies embedded in the flesh.

The fungus hibernates in the soil and enters through broken or injured roots, hence care should be taken when removing the bulbs that the roots are injured as little as possible.

This prevents infection from outside and also destroys any spores or fungus mycelium that may have been packed away along with the bulbs.

There is also an American beetle, the Ambrosia beetle, belonging to the family of Swlytidae, which derives its name from its curious cultivation of a succulent fungus, called ambrosia.

Ambrosia beetles bore deep though minute galleries into trees and timber, and the wood-dust provides a bed for the growth of the fungus, on which the insects and larvae feed.

An interesting species of the last is the leaf-cutting ant (Eciton) which lives in large underground colonies and feeds upon a fungus produced by leaf-cuttings stored in subterranean passages to promote fermentation.

In Germany a fungus (Polyporus Laricis) grows on the roots and stems of decaying larches, which was formerly in esteem as a drastic purgative.

Among the most fatal and disastrous of these diseases with which the cultivator had long to grapple was " muscardine," a malady due to the development of a fungus, Botrytis bassiana, in the body of the caterpillar.

Turning now to instances of the opposite kind, it is known that silkworms which spin colourless cocoons are more resistant to the attacks of a certain deadly fungus than are those which spin the yellow ones.

Owing to their peculiar dual nature, lichens are able to live in situations where neither the alga nor fungus could exist alone.

The enclosed alga is protected by the threads (hyphae) of the fungus, and supplied with water and salts and, possibly, organic nitrogenous substances; in its turn the alga by means of its green or blue-green colouring matter and the sun's energy manufactures carbohydrates which are used in part by the fungus.

He investigated the exact relation of fungus and alga and showed that the same alga is able to combine with a number of different fungi to form lichens; thus Chroolepns umbrinus is found as the gonidia of 13 different lichen genera.

We find two chief types of fruit bodies in the lichens, the perithecium and apothecium; the first when the fungal element is a member of the Pyrenomycetes division of the Ascomycetes, the second when the fungus belongs to the Discomycetes division.

As is clear from the above, nearly all the lichens are produced by the association of an ascomycetous fungus with algae.

When the fungus predominates in the thallus it has a bracket-like mode of growth and is found projecting from the branches of trees with the hymenium on the under side.

It is said that the fungus of Cora pavonia and of Dictyonema is identical, the difference being in the nature of the alga.

On a bare rocky surface a fungus would die from want of organic substance and an alga from drought and want of mineral substances.

The algal cells are usually controlled in their growth by the hyphae and are prevented from forming zoospores, and in some cases, as already described, the algal cells are killed sooner or later by the fungus.

The lichen algae are not alone in their specializa tion to the symbiotic (or parasitic) mode of life, for, as stated earlier, the fungus appear in the majority of cases to have completely lost the power of independent development since with very rare exceptions they are not found alone.

The wall of the hyphae of the fungus give in the young state the ordinary reactions of cellulose but older material shows somewhat different reactions, similar to those of the so-called fungus-cellulose.

Theoretically the lichens may be classified on the basis of their algal constituent, on the basis of their fungal constituent, or they may be classified as if they were homogeneous organisms. The first of these systems is impracticable owing to the absence of algal reproductive organs and the similarity of the algal cells (gonidia) in a large number of different forms. The second system is the most obvious one, since the fungus is the dominant partner and produces reproductive organs.

In actual practice the difference between the second and third methods is not very great since the fungus is the producer of the reproductive organs and generally the main constituent.

It any state most plants feed greedily upon it, and when pure or free from decaying wood or sticks it is a very safe ingredient in composts; but it is so liable to generate fungus, and the mycelium or spawn of certain fungi is so injurious to the roots of trees, attacking them if at all sickly or weakened by drought, that many cultivators prefer not' to mix leaf-mould with the soil used for permanent plants, as peaches or choice ornamental trees.

In a fresh state it is poisonous and fatal to vegetation, and is often used for this reason to dress land infested with wireworms, grubs, club-root fungus, &c.

A widespread disease known as pocket-plums or bladderplums is due to an ascomycetous fungus, Exoascus pruni, the mycelium of which lives parasitically in the tissues of the host plant, passes into the ovary of the flower and causes the characteristic malformation of the fruit which becomes a deformed, sometimes curved or flattened, wrinkled dry structure, with a hollow occupying the place of the stone; the bladder plums are yellow at first, subsequently dingy red.

Plum-leaf blister is caused by Polystigma rubrum, a pyrenomycetous fungus which forms thick fleshy reddish patches on the leaves.

The substance of the fungus is dry and opaque with a peculiar smell suggesting ripe apricots or plums. The flesh is whitish tinged with yellow.

No fungus requires more careful preparation.