Photo by Siu Wai Chiu

Image from Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets, Ten Speed Press

Image from Texas Mushrooms: A Field Guide by Susan Metzler & Van Metzler

… but no, they’re NOT!

There are three major Kingdoms of eukaryotes:

Eumycota, 'true' fungi;

Plantae, all green plants;

Animalia, all multicellular animals.

Image from The Fifth Kingdom by Bryce Kendrick, Mycologue Publications

"...This classification scheme...requires changes in social organization of biologists, many of whom as botanists and zoologists, still behave as if there were only two important kingdoms (plants and animals)...".

Margulis, L. (1992). Biodiversity - molecular biological domains, symbiosis and Kingdom origins. BioSystems 27, 39-51.

"... animals and fungi are sister groups while plants constitute an independent evolutionary lineage...".

Baldauf, S. L. & Palmer, J. D. (1993). Animals and fungi are each others closest relatives - congruent evidence from multiple proteins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U. S. A. 90, 11558-11562.

Fungi are fungi!

There is still uncertainty in the exact sequence of divergence of the major kingdoms, probably because of:

	variable rates of evolution between the different groups examined, and
	variable rates of evolution between the different molecules analyzed.

3.5 billion years ago

There is evidence for the activity of living organisms in terrestrial rocks that are 3.5 × 10⁹ years old.

2 billion years ago

Eukaryotes and eubacteria last shared a common ancestor about 2 × 10⁹ years ago.

1 billion years ago

Eukaryotic kingdoms diverged from one another about 1 × 10⁹ years ago.

Doolittle, R. F., Feng, D. F., Tsang, S., Cho, G. & Little, E. (1996). Determining divergence times of the major kingdoms of living organisms with a protein clock. Science 271, 470-477.

Fungi are fungi! … and they have been for a thousand million years!

Remains of two mushrooms have been found in amber which is 90 to 94 million years old.

They bear a strong resemblance to the existing genera Marasmius and Marasmiellus yet when they were preserved the dinosaurs still ruled the Earth …

Hibbett, D. S., Grimaldi, D. & Donoghue, M. J. (1995). Cretaceous mushrooms in amber. Nature 377, 487.

…so the mushrooms YOU see when you trek through the forest ...

Videostill from The Making of Walking With Dinosaurs © BBC MCMXCIX

…are almost identical to those seen by dinosaurs in their forests.

Videostill from The Making of Walking With Dinosaurs © BBC MCMXCIX

‘...evidence accumulates to support the long-held view that the history of fungi is not marked by change and extinctions but by conservatism and continuity…’

Pirozynski, K. A. (1976). Fungal spores in fossil record. Biological Memoirs 1, 104-120.

In other words: if it works, don't fix it!

Here are some interesting images from an expedition ...

Could this be a Macrolepiota - known in England as the Field Parasol mushroom?

My field guide describes Macrolepiota procera as a "Large distinctive pale brownish agaric with scaly cap; white gills, and pale grey-brown stem with ring, and with banded markings."

Which all seems to fit, except ...

... it doesn’t say anything about the mushroom being two to three METRES tall!

Of course, it’s all fiction!

Videostill from Journey to the Center of the Earth, a Twentieth Century-Fox production

Or is it? …

A press cutting from The Bangkok Post …dated July 31, 2000... asking "Could the earliest forests have been dominated by tree-sized fungi?"

Well, The Bangkok Post (with all due respect) is not considered to be a front-line research journal by many people, so how about a reference to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London? ...

Quote: ‘…It has been suggested that some of the nematophytes (Prototaxites) were terrestrial fungi… (specimens of Prototaxites over 1 m wide have been reported)…’

Wellman, C. H. & Gray, J. (2000). The microfossil record of early land plants. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 355, 717-732.

Now, nematophyte fossils start in rocks more than 450 million years old. They are fossilized tubular things (maybe fungal hyphae?) and are so common and widespread that they must have been an important, even dominant, element both in terms of abundance and diversity in terrestrial ecosystems. They are found in rocks dating from the Ordovician to the early Devonian periods. This covers best part of 100 million years. Nematophytes also included by far the largest organisms of early terrestrial ecosystems.

Remember the quotation - "specimens of Prototaxites over 1 m wide have been reported…"?

One metre across?

So maybe, just maybe …!

Videostills from Journey to the Center of the Earth, a Twentieth Century-Fox production

Some people think fungi are plants...

Fungi are fungi!

Don't underestimate fungi!