fun fungal fact

But the grand champion of devious fungi must be Puccinia monoica, a parasitic rust fungus on wild mustards (Arabis sp.) in the mountains of the western United States. This pathogen, like other rusts, produces its spermatia in nectar. But that is only a small part of the story. The fungus also invades the actively growing cells of its host plant and causes subsequent growth to be grossly different from uninfected relatives. Diseased plants are twice as tall as they should be and have twice as many leaves. Furthermore, the infected leaves are in the form of a dense rosette at the top of each stalk, they are bright yellow, and they are covered with a sticky, sweet-smelling, spore-laden exudate. The entire growth looks so much like a large yellow flower that botany students -- and even professors -- have mistakenly collected it as a new species. The "pseudoflowers" attract a wide array of insects -- far more than the number or variety drawn to healthy mustard plants -- to ensure cross-fertilization of the fungus.

George W. Hudler, Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds, p. 203.

This is page 203 of 234, and the first Fun Fungal Fact from this book -- though in fairness, the bit about European Phytophthora infestans finding its mating partner in the 1980s would qualify. It's no Mims, Alexopoulos, and Blackwell. Mims actually blurbs it, praising "the humor", which suggests to me that the mycology community values politeness or that Alexopoulos and Blackwell were responsible for their book's dry humor. Hudler's is damp and and his language limp.

Some argue vehemently that such treatments have value, while others are far more ambivalent about the issue. In other words, some people swear by wound dressings; others swear at them!