Mushrooms, toadstools, yeasts, moulds and mildews are not plants, but types of fungus. Fungi (plural of fungus) cannot make their own food. Instead they absorb (take in) nutrients from the material they grow in. This may be wood, soil, cheese, plants or animals (alive or dead). Fungi reproduce by releasing spores into the air. Mushrooms and toadstools have caps raised up from the ground on stalks. The spores fall from beneath the cap and are carried away on a breeze.

Recyclers

Fungi grow thin, pale threads, called hyphae, into whatever they are growing in. The threads rot these down into nutrients. The fungi then take in the nutrients.

Like bacteria and earthworms, fungi are nature’s recyclers. They return the nutrients from animal and plant matter back into the soil. Plants then take in the nutrients through their roots. 

Most plants rely on a fungus to help them take in water and nutrients from the soil. They grow what are known as fungal roots. Truffles are examples of these.

Many species of fungi produce chemicals that are poisonous to animals, including humans. They can also cause diseases in plants—including crops and trees (for example, Dutch elm disease).

​​​​​​​A water mould, very similar to a fungus, causes a disease in potatoes called potato blight. It was a major culprit in the 1845 Irish Great Famine. It resulted in the death of more than one million Irish people from starvation, and forced another two million to emigrate, many to the United States.