There is a tendency to overlook the fungi when thinking about plants. Unlike plants, fungi are not green in color, and they grow without real stems, roots or leaves. Many lead to a parasitic existence for they lack chlorophyll and they are unable to manufacture their own food. Fungi include the yeasts, molds, mildews, and rusts, and they play an important role in mans life. They serve as multitude of uses from the production of champagne to the formation of penicillin.
Growing a mold garden is the best way to examine a typical fungus. The great way to closely see the details of the mold is by using a microscope and examining it under an effective compound or light microscope.
The molds are grown on squares of bread, which are slightly moistened with water. With a loosely fitting screw cap, place the bread squares in a wide mouthed jar to be kept for several days. To ensure growth of molds on the bread surface, there are usually enough mold spores in the air. After few days, with the bread over the microscope glass slide and viewed underneath a low-powered microscope, will appear a gray network of cobwebby strands, upright filaments which bear at their tips whitish bulges which in a short time darken and turn brownish black with the developing spores on the surface of the bread. This is the common bread mold called Rhizopus nigricans.
Teases shreds of mold from the creeping stem like structures of the mold called a mycelium, and mount it on the microscope glass slide. Use a glycerin rather than water as a mounting medium for the microscope glass slide to ensure best results. Under a low powered microscope, focus on the tangled mycelium, the reproductive stalks known as hyphae, and the cases of spores.
Oranges or lemons, which have been kept in a warm place over a period of time, will produce different kind of mold. This mold belongs to the genus Penicillium, a close relative of the mold that produces the antibiotic penicillin. Mount a bit of this green mold on the microscope glass slide, examine and analyze the similarities and the differences between the Rhizopus and the Penicillium. The one with a broom like appearance of the upright stalks is the Penicillium. The chains of spores at the tips of the hyphae cause this appearance.
Yeasts are good samples for laboratory culture. They can be grown in sugar solution or in a 10% molasses solution. Crumble a piece of yeast of a bean size into a sugar broth and keep the culture inside the Erlenmeyer flask. Add about one quarter of a package of dried yeast if a cake of yeast is not available. Using a wad of absorbent cotton, plug the flask and set it in a warm place for one to two days.
By a process known as budding, yeast just produce. During this process, a new cell develops as a growing bud from the parent cell. The new bud remains attached often to the parent cell while producing its own bud. In a culture of yeast plant, one can expect to see single cells and chain-like collections of budding cells.
Remove a drop of yeast sugar culture and place it on a clean side, to prepare a microscope glass slide of yeast cells. Spread the drop of culture on the microscope glass slide, smear side up, several times through the flame of an alcohol lamp. This method fixes the yeast cells to the microscope glass slide. The crystal violet stain will make it easier to see the structural details of the preparation. Cover the smear with several drops of this stain and allow it to stand fore 30 seconds. Using a gentle flow, rinse it in a tap water and then examine underneath a high powered microscope for cells and budding cells.
