Principles of mushroom developmental biology

Research done over the last century has persistently indicated major differences between fungi, animals, and plants. Unfortunately, for most of that time fungi have been considered, quite erroneously, to be closely related to plants; as observations have been constrained to comply with this fundamental error, a proper appreciation of fungal developmental biology has been seriously inhibited. During the final quarter of the 20th century, the phylogenetic status of the true fungi as an independent Kingdom of eukaryotes became clear. In this review, I bring together some of the observations, old and recent, that contribute to our current understanding of the way that fungi construct multicellular structures. © 2005 by Begell House, Inc.