Q.The stored food-material of fungi is -
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What is a Fungus? The Intuition
Think of a mushroom you see in the forest, the mould on a forgotten slice of bread, or the yeast that makes dough rise. These are all fungi. But what makes them a kingdom of their own, separate from plants and animals?
The first and most important thing to grasp is this: fungi are not plants. They do not have chlorophyll, so they cannot make their own food by photosynthesis. They are heterotrophs — they must obtain organic carbon from other sources. But unlike animals, which ingest food and digest it inside their bodies, fungi do something completely different: they digest food outside their bodies and then absorb the nutrients.
Imagine throwing digestive juices onto your dinner, waiting for it to break down into a soup, and then drinking it through a straw. That is exactly how a fungus feeds. This mode of nutrition is called absorptive heterotrophy.
The Fungal Body: Hyphae and Mycelium
Most fungi are multicellular (yeasts are the major unicellular exception). But a fungus does not build tissues like a plant or an animal. Instead, its body is made of long, branching, thread-like structures called hyphae (singular: hypha).
A single hypha is a tiny tube, often just one cell wide. It is filled with cytoplasm and nuclei, and it grows at its tip, pushing forward into new food sources.
The entire network of hyphae that makes up the body of a fungus is called the mycelium. You have seen mycelium before — it is the white, fuzzy, cobweb-like growth you find under a rotting log or on old bread. The mycelium is the main body of the fungus; the mushroom you see above ground is just the reproductive structure, like the fruit of a plant.
The Cell Wall: A Key Distinction
Every fungal cell is surrounded by a cell wall. But here is the critical difference from plants:
- Plants have cell walls made of cellulose.
- Fungi have cell walls made of chitin.
Chitin is the same tough, flexible material that makes up the exoskeleton of insects and crustaceans. This is a fundamental biochemical difference that places fungi closer to animals than to plants in evolutionary terms.
Reproduction: The Power of Spores
Fungi reproduce primarily through spores. A spore is a tiny, often single-celled reproductive unit that can develop into a new fungus without needing to fuse with another cell (though sexual fusion also occurs).
Spores are produced in enormous numbers and can be dispersed by wind, water, or animals. They are incredibly resilient — some can survive extreme heat, cold, or drought for years, waiting for the right conditions to germinate.
When you see a puffball mushroom release a cloud of "smoke" when stepped on, that smoke is millions of spores being launched into the air. …
Fungi are heterotrophic like animals in several respects, including how they store reserve carbohydrate. …
Fungi store their reserve food as glycogen, not starch.
Plants and most algae store their carbohydrate reserve as starch, a polymer of glucose. Fungi, however, are more similar to animals in their storage chemistry: they store their reserve food as glycogen, a highly branched glucose polymer identical in structure to the glycogen found in the liver and muscle of animals. This is one of several biochemical features (along with chitinous cell walls) that place Fungi in their own kingdom rather than with plants.
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- CBSE 2026Set ANNUAL1 markMCQQ.The stored food-material of fungi is -(a) Starch(b) Protein(c) Glucose(d) Glycogen
›Reveal solutionSolution
Fungi store their reserve food as glycogen, not starch.
Plants and most algae store their carbohydrate reserve as starch, a polymer of glucose. Fungi, however, are more similar to animals in their storage chemistry: they store their reserve food as glycogen, a highly branched glucose polymer identical in structure to the glycogen found in the liver and muscle of animals. This is one of several biochemical features (along with chitinous cell walls) that place Fungi in their own kingdom rather than with plants.
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- CBSE 2026Set ANN1 markQ.Which kingdom includes multicellular, heterotrophic organism with chitin in their cell walls?
›Reveal solutionSolution
Multicellular, heterotrophic organisms with chitinous cell walls belong to Kingdom Fungi.
In the five-kingdom classification of Whittaker, the organisms that are eukaryotic, mostly multicellular, heterotrophic (they absorb food, being saprophytes or parasites), and possess cell walls made of chitin (a complex polysacc …
- CBSE 2023Set ANNUAL1 markMCQQ.Mode of nutrition in fungi is :(a) autotrophes(b) heterotrophes(c) holozoic(d) parasitic
›Reveal solutionSolution
Fungi are heterotrophic.
Fungi lack chlorophyll, so they cannot photosynthesise. They obtain nourishment from dead organic matter (saprophytic) or from living hosts (parasitic) — i.e. they are heterotrophic. Hence the mode of nutrition in fungi is he …
- CBSE 2022Set ANNUAL1 markMCQQ.Mode of nutrition in fungi is:(a) Heterotrophic(b) Saprotrophic(c) Chemo autotrophic(d) Photo autotrophic
›Reveal solutionSolution
Fungi lack chlorophyll and absorb organic nutrients → heterotrophic → (a).
As described for Kingdom Fungi in the NCERT Class 11 Biology chapter on Biological Classification:
- Fungi have no chlorophyll, so they cannot perform photosynthesis (ruling out photo-autotrophic and chemo-autotrophic).
- They obtain nutrition by absorption of organic material — as saprophytes (on dead matter), parasites (on living hosts) or symbionts (lichens, mycorrhizae). …
- CBSE 2020Set ANNUAL1 markMCQQ.Which of the following is a uncellular fungi ?(a) Yeast(b) Agaricus(c) Penicillum(d) Puccima
›Reveal solutionSolution
Yeast (Saccharomyces) is unicellular; the other three listed fungi are all multicellular/filamentous.
Most fungi are filamentous (made of hyphae forming a mycelium), but a few, like yeast, exist as single cells that reproduce by budding.
- (a) Yeast -- unicellular, used in fermentation/baking.
- (b) Agaricus -- the common mushroom, a large multicellular basidiomycete. …
- CBSE 2020Set ANNUAL1 markMCQQ.Penicillin is obtained from which organism ?(a) Protozoa(b) Bacteria(c) Fungi(d) Chrysophyte
›Reveal solutionSolution
Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming from Penicillium, a genus of fungi, and remains the classic textbook example of a fungus-derived antibiotic.
Fungi like Penicillium produce antibiotic compounds as secondary metabolites; Penicillium notatum (and later Penicillium chrysogenum for industrial production) yields penicillin, which inhibits bacterial cell wall synthesis. This discovery revolutionised medicine and is a standard example used to illustrate the economic/medical importance of the fungal ki …
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