It's a Mycological Easter egg hunt, a gathering of mushrooms that come from eggs! For the rest of my pages on fungi, please click TomVolkFungi.net Return to Tom Volk's Mycological Easter egg hunt page. You've found Phytophthora infestans, cause of late blight of potato and the Irish potato famine! It another water mold, in the Oomycota-- literally, the egg fungi. Phytophthora infestans is the cause of a terrible disease called late blight of potato. This organism ( as well as social problems) caused over a milion people to starve to death in 1845-1846 in Ireland. You can read more about the history of the famine on this page. This organism is one of those outcasts that used to be considered a fungus, but no longer is. We now place it, along with other members of the Oomycota, in the Kingdom Protista, or the Stramenopila, which aslo contains the brown algae and diatoms, on this page on late blight of potato. If you have anything to add, or if you have corrections or comments, please write to me at volk.thom@uwlax.edu This page and other pages are © Copyright 2003 by Thomas J. Volk, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Return to Tom Volk's Fungi Home Page --TomVolkFungi.net Return to Tom Volk's Fungus of the month pages listing Return to Tom Volk's Mycological Easter egg hunt page.
Return to Tom Volk's Mycological Easter egg hunt page.
You've found Phytophthora infestans, cause of late blight of potato and the Irish potato famine! It another water mold, in the Oomycota-- literally, the egg fungi.
Phytophthora infestans is the cause of a terrible disease called late blight of potato. This organism ( as well as social problems) caused over a milion people to starve to death in 1845-1846 in Ireland. You can read more about the history of the famine on this page. This organism is one of those outcasts that used to be considered a fungus, but no longer is. We now place it, along with other members of the Oomycota, in the Kingdom Protista, or the Stramenopila, which aslo contains the brown algae and diatoms, on this page on late blight of potato. If you have anything to add, or if you have corrections or comments, please write to me at volk.thom@uwlax.edu This page and other pages are © Copyright 2003 by Thomas J. Volk, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Return to Tom Volk's Fungi Home Page --TomVolkFungi.net Return to Tom Volk's Fungus of the month pages listing Return to Tom Volk's Mycological Easter egg hunt page.
This organism is one of those outcasts that used to be considered a fungus, but no longer is. We now place it, along with other members of the Oomycota, in the Kingdom Protista, or the Stramenopila, which aslo contains the brown algae and diatoms, on this page on late blight of potato.
Return to Tom Volk's Fungi Home Page --TomVolkFungi.net
Return to Tom Volk's Fungus of the month pages listing