Talk:Fungus

Fungi is multicellular or unicellular

Both because it depends it's condition 2409:4089:AA81:D197:0:0:FF08:AF12 (talk) 14:29, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

This is in the article where it says "and morphologies ranging from unicellular aquatic chytrids to large mushrooms." Graham Beards (talk) 14:32, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

When was Fungi classified as separate from Plants?

Suggestions:

• 1. Change sentence about mycology "In the past..." to: "Despite Fungi being classified separately from plants as early as 1860, Fungi didn't get their own Kingdom until the Five kingdoms model in 1969."

We don't actually have a source saying Mycology is no longer a part of Botany at all, much less since when, and that is really the problem of the Mycology article, not the Fungus article. For what it's worth, they just cite Whittaker 1969 the same as Fungus and Kingdom (biology) even though that paper doesn't actually say either of the 2 things they say it says... They don't have a source either. Leave the problem in 1 spot so it only has to be fixed 1 time.

• 2. Reduce usage of vague references to past time periods in this article and replace them with dates when possible.
• 3. Restructure #Taxonomy to have a better flow and less repetition. And to put more if it in layman's terms, if possible.
• 4. Improve Kingdom (biology) to make it a little more clear what was going on the the classification of Fungi prior to the 5 Kingdoms model.
• 5. Remove Fungus#Mycology and link to Mycology instead.

Sorry to resurrect this archived topic, but while it did get a couple good responses, the problem with the article was not addressed. Perhaps I was not clear enough: I'm not bringing this up on a Wikipedia talk page just to discuss it, that is not what Wikipedia talk pages are for. The sentence in the article SUCKS REALLY BAD and should be improved. Some relevant information was brought to light in the archived topic, but I'm not sure the best way to integrate it, and hoping to get some feedback before I try to make changes.

The sentence: "In the past, mycology was regarded as a branch of botany, although it is now known fungi are genetically more closely related to animals than to plants."

This sentence is superficially exactly the information I was looking for, so I was quite thankful to find it right at the beginning. "Are fungi plants or animals?" is probably a totally great question to address right at the beginning in simple language. However, this sentence has several problems: 1. "In the past" and "it is now know" are vague and contextual time references. They don't belong in an Encyclopedia and mean almost nothing in the context of a wiki article. 2. It could easily be misinterpreted to mean that fungi are in the animal kingdom. 3. No source cited. No link to further details. Last sentence of a paragraph. It hits a literary dead end before it actually conveys any information.

As it is part of the intro, being superficial could be totally appropriate. And as it is a superficial conclusion of information that is presumably in the article, maybe it doesn't really need a proper citation. But it needs some kind of flow or link to where the information is discussed in detail and there IS a proper citation, and it needs to not be misleading.

Graham Beards pointed out that it is discussed more under Fungus#Taxonomy which leads with a sentence of nearly identical meaning but replaces ambiguous statements about taxonomy with jargon. So all the same problems. It cites a source from 2008. This is not when Fungi got reclassified. This section meanders around and mentions some more dates, but it's really not that well structured and heavy on jargon so you might think that Fungi got it's own kingdom in 2007, which is not true. Actually, none of the dates in this section are when Fungi got it's own kingdom. I don't think the answer is in the Fungus article at all. Considering the Fungi Kingdom was invented right around the same time as the internet, and not "in the past", this seems like a major oversight. Why was this issue archived without being addressed?!

Petr Karel suggested Whittaker's 1969 paper in Science for Fungi getting their own kingdom. I skimmed that paper, agree with Petr's interpretation of it, and subsequently found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_(biology)#Five_kingdoms which states the same. Linking back to that article stub could be a good way to keep Fungus concise and avoid repetition.

---

From archive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fungus/Archive_4#h-When_was_Fungi_classified_as_seperate_from_Plants?-20230316103600

In article: "In the past, mycology was regarded as a branch of botany, although it is now known fungi are genetically more closely related to animals than to plants." Soucre? And when did this happen? Flasher702 (talk) 10:36, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Read the article! It's under Taxonomy and a source is given.Graham Beards (talk) 11:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

When did this happen? – I think the first system with Kingdom Fungi separated from plants was the system of R. H. Whittaker from 1969 (; ; ) but there may be some older reference. --Petr Karel (talk) 12:41, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

---

Flasher702 (talk) 16:14, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Evolution sections

There are two sections titled "evolution". Can someone fix this? 96.95.142.29 (talk) 19:23, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Done. Esculenta (talk) 19:37, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Balanced subheadings and merged. Chiswick Chap (talk) 01:46, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Prototaxites mention in fossil history section

References of Prototaxites as a fungus or lichen should be removed or at least edited to be less definitive, since this has never been confirmed and new research indicates that they were most likely in a distinct branch of eukaryota. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.14.643340v1 50.225.46.187 (talk) 17:29, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

typo in Characteristics section

"growth habitat" should be changed to "growth habit" 50.225.46.187 (talk) 22:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Mycology

how about making a separate article about it?. TrueMoriarty Talk | Contribs 14:50, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Mycology. Esculenta (talk) 15:18, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

didn't notice. Sorry.

TrueMoriarty Talk | Contribs 15:19, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Needs section on fungal pseudoflowers

It would be good to have a section on the phenomenon of fungi parasitizing a plant to produce structures that look like flowers but are not flowers, tricking pollinators into spreading fungal spores or spermata instead of pollen. Examples are Puccinia monoica and Fusarium xyrophilum. Llajwa (talk) 15:36, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

The Ecology -> Symbiosis -> As parasites sub-section talks about fungi changing animal behaviour to help spread it's spores "Some fungi alter the behavior of their animal hosts in ways that spread their spores more effectively (also called "active host transmission"). Examples include Ophiocordyceps unilateralis and possibly the extinct Allocordyceps." I suppose the same is true in various relationships with plants, the one you mentioned and also Corn smut are examples of that. Chattenoir (talk) 16:11, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Maybe: (probably can be better written)

Some fungi may alter the behaviour of plants they parasitize, such as Puccinia monoica, in which the growth of flower-like structures is inhibited in plant species such as Boechera, in order to attract insects and thereby use the insect to spread it's spores. Chattenoir (talk) 16:26, 23 March 2026 (UTC)