Q 01/05

A mushroom is technically which part of a fungus?

A) Its underground root system

B) Its spore-bearing fruiting body

C) Its dormant seed capsule

D) Its photosynthetic leaf

Answer · why

B) Its spore-bearing fruiting body

Its spore-bearing fruiting body is all a mushroom is: the rest of the fungus is a web of fine threads hidden in soil or wood, which sends mushrooms up...

Q 02/05

Fungal cell walls contain which substance in place of plants' cellulose?

A) Collagen

B) Chitin

C) Keratin

D) Lignin

Answer · why

B) Chitin

Chitin, the horny stuff of crab and lobster shells, stiffens fungal cell walls; it is one of the features that put fungi in a kingdom apart from plant...

Q 03/05

Genetically, fungi are more closely related to which group than to plants?

A) Bacteria

B) Algae

C) Animals

D) Protists

Answer · why

C) Animals

Animals. Fungi are so close to us chemically and genetically that fungal diseases are very hard to treat, yet their study was long filed under botany.

Q 04/05

Roughly how many species of fungi had scientists formally described by 2020?

A) About 1,500

B) About 15,000

C) About 150,000

D) About 1.5 million

Answer · why

C) About 150,000

About 150,000 had names by 2020, yet estimates of the true total run from 2.2 to 3.8 million species, so the great majority of fungi are still unknown...

Q 05/05

Ink cap mushrooms are named for what?

A) Staining wood black

B) Dissolving into black liquid

C) Smelling of fresh ink

D) Looking like tiny inkwells

Answer · why

B) Dissolving into black liquid

Dissolving into black liquid is how an ink cap ends: it digests itself from the rim upward once its spores ripen, until little more than a bare stem i...