Question

How are the delicate and soft fungal hyphae able to penetrate the hard timbers?

Answer 1

Hint:Long, branching filamentous structure of a fungus, oomycete, or actinobacteria. Is called hyphae.In most fungi, hyphae are the main mode of vegetative growth.

Complete answer:
The kingdom fungi contain achlorophyllous, eukaryotic, heterotrophic, spore-producing, thalloid organisms. Fungi include diverse organisms that range in structure from unicellular yeasts to highly complex edible mushrooms, non-edible toadstools. They are sophisticated in the occurrence that is present in the air, water, soil, and on the animals and plants. A fungus is able to break the cell wall of the root cells. It produces several acids that soften the hard timbers.

They are more abundant in warm and humid areas. That is why they show great diversity in morphology and habitat. They may grow on tree bark, dung, wood, burnt wood, and keratinous material (e.g, hair, horns) and are called corticolous(bark), coprophilous (cow dung), epixylic (wood), xylophilous (burnt wood), and keratinophilic ( keratin) respectively. The body is haploid (n) and thalloid, i.e., not differentiated into root, stem, and leaves. The fungal body is made up of thread-like elongated tubular structure, called hyphae. These criss-cross with one another to form a network known as mycelium. The hyphae may be aseptate and multinucleate. Such a hypha is termed coenocytic. In most of the fungi, the mycelium is septate. The septum, however, is not complete but has a pore through which continuity of the cytoplasm of the adjoining cells is maintained. The septum may have a simple central pore as in ascomycetes, but in higher fungi (class- basidiomycetes) the septum is a dolipore septum in which the central pore possesses barrel-shaped inflation.

Notes:Foods are protected from the attack of bacteria and fungi by refrigerating them because at the low temperature they become inactive.