This is a book for the general reader about the world of fungi. We should know more about fungi. They have killed us, saved us and served us since before written records began. We have been making bread, brewing ale, and fermenting wine for millennia. Our crops have been at the mercy of fungal diseases since we became farmers, and they still are. Fungal diseases have caused large demographic changes - from the great plague of 'St. Anthony's Fire' of the Middle Ages (caused by a fungal toxin) to the Irish mass migration to the Americas during the famine (caused by a fungal disease of the...

Most genetics textbooks deal adequately with plant and animal genetics, but tend to neglect fungi except for two areas. Firstly, the ascus segregations which, in the 1960s, contributed so much to developing an understanding of the mechanism of recombination and secondly, the contribution that work on yeast (as a model eukaryote) is currently making to understanding cell cycle control and its genetic regulation. Consequently, most introductory genetics texts will leave the reader/student with the impression that fungi are of use when peculiarities of their structure or life style suit them to...

This is a book for the general reader about the world of fungi. We should know more about fungi. They have killed us, saved us and served us since before written records began. We have been making bread, brewing ale, and fermenting wine for millennia. Our crops have been at the mercy of fungal diseases since we became farmers, and they still are. Fungal diseases have caused large demographic changes - from the great plague of 'St. Anthony's Fire' of the Middle Ages (caused by a fungal toxin) to the Irish mass migration to the Americas during the famine (caused by a fungal disease of the...