Stalker was amused by the recent kerfuffle in the Times newspaper over a crossword clue. Puzzlers were unhappy with the clue that was set. “She reduced space for psychedelic plant (6)”. The answer was given as SHROOM i.e. SH(e) + ROOM.
Some solvers had never heard of the word, while others gave out on different grounds; “ I realise that it must irritate setters to have errors pointed out to them,” wrote Peter Cowling of the Mid-Yorks Fungi Group. “After all, they do put great effort into giving us our daily brain workout. But mushrooms are not plants, they belong to their own separate taxonomic kingdom.”
The puzzle editor was suitably chastened. “Well, blow me down with a fungal spore. I am pretty sure that in the 70s when i did mushrooms in biology ( by which I mean when I studied them) fungi were plants. But apparently Carl Linnaeus’s 18th century classification was overturned as long ago as 1969 when US ecologist Robert Whittaker proposed separating fungi into their own distinct kingdom.”
Stalker is confident that all mushroom folk out there are well aware of fungi being in a separate kingdom and well aware of the shroom designation too!
