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Article: Fungi
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- Plant Sciences
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Fungi
Mycology is the study of fungi (
mykes
, Greek for "fungi," and
ology
, meaning "study of"). Most contemporary mycologists consider the fungi to be in two kingdoms: kingdom Fungi with five phyla and kingdom Stramenopila with three phyla. The total number of fungi in the world is estimated to be over 1.5 million with less than 5 percent of the species described. Some mycologists believe that the total number of fungi may be more than 2 million. Two other kingdoms are sometimes mistaken for fungi: the slime molds (kingdom Myxomycota), which have a creeping plasmodium, and the bacteria and
actinomycetes
(kingdom Monera).
Structure and Life Cycle
Fungi are nonphotosynthetic, lacking ...