How Are Fungi and Plants Similar?

Plants and fungi are both eukaryotic organisms whose cells are buffered by cellulose walls.

Like plants, some fungi can be used as food and medicine, and they are alike in their relative lack of mobility.

Despite their similarities, plants and fungi differ in important ways. Plants are autotrophs, meaning they can generate their own food, while all fungi require food from external sources. Like plants, fungi can reproduce sexually or asexually, by casting spores, but some fungi mate by completely merging their own DNA with that of a partner in a process that has no analogue among plants or animals.