Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Have you seen something growing on your bread which has not been eaten for a very long time? I would say yes. What you observed growing on the bread is bread mould. Bread mould belongs to a group of living things called fungi.
Mushrooms are also a type of fungi. Fungi come in various sizes. Some of are large enough for you to see, like the mushrooms. Some fungi, like yeast, are too small to see with our naked eyes. You will need a help of a microscope to be able to see how they look like.
Fungi reproduce by producing spores. Spores are very tiny and light. They look like brown dust. In mould, spores are contained in spore cases. In mushrooms, spores are found in the gills under the cap.
Fungi grow in places where there is a lot of moisture. They can grow in toilets, in corners of some buildings and even on the bodies of some animals!
Fungi can be useful to people. Some of them are used to produce the food we eat, such as bread and cheese.
However, some fungi are harmful to people such as the poisonous fungi. There are also fungi that turn food bad when they grow on food. Eating food that has turned bad can make you sick!
Shannon Lim typed @ 9:02 PM
