Luminescence of Higher Mushrooms

* Corresponding author E-mail address: bondvs@mail.ru 1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved Unique position the kingdom of mushrooms holds in the living nature was sagaciously foretold by French botanist and mycologist Sebastien Vaillant whose words are given in the epigraph of this paper. Fabulous foresight at the turn of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries when nothing was known about biochemistry, not to mention genetics. Yet, further development of biology proves equidistance of the kingdom of mushrooms from both animals and plants. But traditions die hard and up to now mycology is studied in universities in the course of general botany. The mechanism of bioluminescence in fungi, the knowledge of which is reviewed in this work, also proves their unique position. Fungi