Dar es Salaam, Sept. 28 -- MUSHROOMS may not be the first food that comes to mind when we imagine the diets of wild primates – or our early human ancestors. We tend to think of fruits and green leaves as the preferred foods for monkeys and apes.

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source.A toadstool generally refers to a poisonous mushroom.

The standard for the name ‘mushroom is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence, the word ‘mushroom is most often applied to those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the underside of the cap....