Question

Mushroom get its food from
(a) Dead and decaying plants
(b) Photosynthesis
(c) Eating small insects which come near it
(d) The water we pour near it

Answer 1

Hint: Mushrooms don’t have chlorophyll like plants. They cannot prepare their own food directly from sunlight. They depend upon others for nutrition. Mushroom is most frequently put into those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) which have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the bottom part of the cap.

Complete answer:
Mushrooms are the fleshy, spore-bearing, and produce fruit body and belong to the kingdom of fungi. They typically generate above ground on the soil and have a saprophytic mode of nutrition (a type of heterotrophic nutrition), which means that the organisms prey on dead and decaying plant or animal matter. It describes a variety of gilled fungi, with or without stems. The gills present in them produce microscopic spores that help the fungus spread across the ground or its occupant surface.

They belong to a kingdom of their own, divide away plants and animals. Fungi differ from plants and animals within the way they obtain their nutrients. Basically, plants make their food using the sun's energy (i.e. photosynthesis), while animals eat, then internally digest the food. Nutrients and other essential compounds are stored in their bodies, and when there's enough material stored and therefore the conditions are right they begin to fruit or produce mushrooms.

Additional information:
The characteristics of fungi are-
- Fungi are more closely associated with animals than plants.
- Fungi are heterotrophic in nature in that they use complex organic compounds as sources of energy and carbon, not photosynthesis.
- Fungi are often divided either asexually, sexually, or both.
- The majority of fungi produce spores (haploid cells) which will undergo mitosis to make them multicellular.
- Fungi accompany other organisms by making beneficial or mutualistic associations (mycorrhizae and lichens) or by causing serious infections.

So, the right answer is ‘Dead and decaying plants’.

Note: Mushrooms are used extensively in cooking. It contains vitamins like B, C, D, K, and folic acids. Most of the mushrooms have high medicinal value to reduce blood pressure, obesity (to be fatty), constipation, etc.