Book reviews

Usually fungi are a forgotten group of organisms when devising a course in physiology at the introductory level. This book is meant to propagate fungi as tools in such a course because of the many advantages they have; most fungi are easy to grow under laboratory conditions and the experiments can be performed with simple facilities. This book describes many experiments which can be done with only some petri dishes, a set of simple chemicals and a microscope at hand. In the first three chapters, covering half of the contents of the book, the pattern of development of mycelial fungi is traced starting with germination of spores and the effect of several factors on this process, then several facets of the growth of mature hyphae are demonstrated and subsequently several aspects of the developing colony are dealt with. This part is the best of the book. Several nice and simple experiments are suggested, intermingled with clearly written theoretical background information. One thing about the experiments is that because they are so simple the results are not very spectacular and it will be difficult to keep the students interested.