The Nibbling Kingdom

MUSHROOMS, MOLDS, AND MIRACLES by Lucy Kavaler. 318 pages. John Day. $6.50.

Fungus meant mushroom to the Romans. To scientists today, the term connotes a vast vegetable family whose members include some of man's best friends and some of his deadlier enemies. Only in recent decades has science even begun to tell which is which, or even to count their kind; so far, more than 100,000 species have been identified, and there are probably at least 150,000 more awaiting discovery.

The savory truffle is a fungus, and so is the unsavory trifle that causes athlete's foot. Life-saving penicillin comes from one fungus (Penicillium notatum); from another comes the lichen that is slowly devouring the Parthenon. Yet another yields the drug LSD, which has been used experimentally in the treatment of schizophrenic children and alcoholics. Knowledge of the complex, infinitely various, unbelievably hardy fungus kingdom has multiplied immeasurably in the past century. In this fascinating, ambitious book by Lucy Kavaler, its villains, heroes and hopefuls are fully explained to the nonscientific reader.

Camembert & Wine. Plantlike, but not quite plants, fungi are rootless and leafless, consist of tiny threads (hyphae) tangled in a mass (mycelium) that can grow as much as half a mile in 24 hours. Lacking chlorophyll, fungi cannot make their own food, batten instead on fabric, fur, fat, paint, plants, plastics, skeletons, cold cream, jet fuel and people. One species can survive only on the left hind leg of a water beetle. Most fungi reproduce by the sexual union of two different spores, sometimes drop hundreds 'of millions of spores in three or four days. Most of them are important biochemical brokers; some are essential to the cycle of organic decay and regeneration. Without fungi, higher forms of life could not exist.

The benefits to man are countless. The fragile inky cap is delicious if gathered young and cooked promptly. Lichen, formed by the union of fungi and algae, eats into rock, prepares it to become new soil. The molds that make Camembert are fungi; so are the yeasts that leaven bread and ferment grapes, grains, berries, cacti, honey and camel's milk into alcohol. Yeasts keep industry in ferment as well, assist in the manufacture of paint remover, antifreeze, synthetic rubber, adhesives, cosmetics and perfume. Yeast-feeding produces better pelts in mink, more honey from bees, faster growth in trout.

Benefit & Bane. Even more dramatic are the contributions fungi have made to science and medicine. Yeasts' high content of vitamins makes them effective against beriberi and pellagra. Ergot, derived from fungus-infected grain, speeds labor in childbirth, helps control bleeding. A common red bread mold has vastly facilitated research on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which governs heredity and holds the secret of life.

Fungi can be as full of menace as they are of hope. In man, they have been responsible for convulsions, delirium and even death, which come from eating poisoned mushrooms; for gangrene and madness, which come from eating ergot-infected grain. They also produce cryptococcosis, which attacks the central nervous system, and severe respiratory infections that resemble tuberculosis but are far trickier. In plants, fungi are the most important single cause of disease such as slime mold, annually devouring $2 billion worth of food and fibers in the U.S. and one-tenth of the world's wheat crop.

Eradication of fungal diseases is nearly impossible. Fungus spores are transported by insects, airplanes, tourists, animals--one captured woodpecker was found to be carrying 750,000 spores of the chestnut blight. Even if all these agents could be controlled, man could hardly quarantine the wind, which can carry spores anywhere up to 2,900 miles. Subzero cold does not kill fungi; dehydration does not kill its spores. And almost every time that man develops a plant strain which resists one baneful fungus disease, it succumbs to new and more virulent varieties that had not previously been known.

Power for Yeast. Yet while fungi seem limitless in number, they also promise limitless benefits. Predaceous species, capable of destroying insects, worms and other microorganisms, could replace hazardous chemical pesticides such as DDT. One pathogenic fungus actually accelerates plant growth, may some day bring wheat, corn and oats to maturity in half the normal time. Yeast cells growing in a sugar solution can produce measurable currents of electricity, and NASA-sponsored research aims at supplying electric power for spacecraft from microorganisms grown on human wastes. In hopes of preventing earthly fungi from infecting other planets, U.S. scientists have already established an elaborate quarantine system for outer space.

But the fungal balance of power could finally be determined by unsuspected species growing in undiscovered worlds. From Mars or the moon may come new spores to serve man--or to destroy him.

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