10
andrias, 19
(2012)
potentially immortal and they form the tallest in-
dividuals. The honey mushroom, often classified
as the tallest organism on earth by the popular
press, can form a mycelium of several km
2
. The
inconspicuous nature of fungi may be explained
by their short-lived and erratically formed fruit-
bodies, the only part of the fungus that we see.
The major part of the fungal biomass consists of
invisible hyphae (in a body called mycelium) in
the substrate such as soil, wood, litter, horn, or
living tissue of hosts. Hyphae release enzymes
into the substrate and after decomposition take
up smaller soluble components by endocytosis
and thus gain their energy for growth and repro-
duction. This external digestion is different from
the internal digestion (ingestion) of most animals
and the autotrophic life style of plants. There
are three basic types of nutrition in fungi: As
saprobes they decompose dead organic material
and mineralize it. Without fungal saprobes life on
our planet would not be possible, because other
organisms would suffocate in the organic “waste”.
As symbionts (mycorrhizal and lichenized spe-
cies) they supply plants or algae with water and
minerals and promote their growth. Finally, there
are many parasites of plants and animals. Their
significance among other things as regulator and
promoter of evolutionary processes is immense.
Many people view this differently, the more so
as many parasites are pests of cultivated plants
reducing crop yields and misshape ornamental
plants.
Although the knowledge about fungi is rather
limited in the general public, it should be em-
phasized, that there is a considerable number
of people dealing with fungi. On the one side,
there are mushroom hunters and amateur my-
cologists, often organized in public mushroom
clubs, on the other side professional mycolo-
gists are working in commercial (mostly indus-
trial) sectors, as researchers in universities and
other research institutions, plant breeders, plant
and forest pathologists, physicians, ecologists,
conservationists etc. This formerly and presently
holds for Baden-Württemberg, the southwestern
German federal state with its close to 10.8 mil-
lion people.
As in other parts of Central Europe, the profes-
sional scientific mycology in today’s Baden-Würt-
temberg boosted in the second part of the 19
th
century. It was promoted by the state, among
other things as a consequence of numerous in-
troduced fungal pests (late blight of potato, pow-
dery and downy mildew of grape). Here particu-
larly Prof. H
einrich
A
nton
de
B
ary
(1831–1888)
must be mentioned. D
e
B
ary
, born in Frankfurt
a. M., is probably the world’s most famous my-
cologist. In the USA, he is venerated as “father
of plant pathology”. Scientifically, he spent his
most productive period in Baden-Württemberg.
He was promoted professor (habilitation) at the
University of Tübingen and taught as professor
at Freiburg University until 1866 (afterwards ac-
cepting positions in Halle a. d. Saale and finally
in Straßburg, today belonging to France). During
his period in Freiburg i. B. he wrote the most im-
portant mycological textbook of the 19
th
century
titled “Morphology and Physiology of Fungi, Li-
chens and Slime moulds”; we owe him the dis-
covery of sexuality in fungi, the life cycle of the
causative agent of the light blight of potato, the
experimental evidence of host-alternation in rust
fungi, the fundamentals of the lichen symbio-
sis etc. For this period, it is exceptional that
de
B
ary
attracted and taught students from foreign
countries, even from non-European ones. These
students, in turn, brought de B
ary
’s know-how to
other continents. In „Introduction to the history
of mycology (1976)” by the English mycologist
G
eoffrey
C
lough
A
inthworth
,
de
B
ary
is cited
more than any other mycologist on not less than
41 pages.
Baden-Württemberg always generated important
mycologists, so it did in the preceding decades.
One is Prof. K
urt
W
alter
M
endgen
, a multiply-
decorated scientist of the University of Konstanz
(Constance), who studied host-parasite interac-
tions on a molecular and immune-histological
level. His former student, R
alf
T
homas
V
oegele
,
and Prof. O
tmar
S
pring
are carrying this topic
of research at the University of Hohenheim for-
ward. A well-known lichenologist is the former
director of the Natural History Museum in Karls-
ruhe, Prof. V
olkmar
W
irth
. Prof. F
ranz
O
ber
-
winkler
, a fungal systematist and ecologist of
Bavarian origin, established an internationally
important chair with emphasis on mycology at
the University of Tübingen. He is the first and
only German mycologist appointed president of
the „International Mycological Conference”. He
also is editor-in-chief of “Mycological Progress”,
one of the leading international mycological jour-
nals. Today, Prof. O
berwinkler
’s former students
are scattered throughout the world. Whether
Prof. O
berwinkler
’s chair in Tübingen will be re-
occupied or not by a mycologist is still undeci-
ded. Meanwhile, however, several mycological
groups have been established at the universities
