Mould hyphae grow over the surface and inside nearly all substances of plant or animal origin. Because of their filamentous construction and consistent lack of chlorophyll they are considered by most biologists to be separate from the plant kingdom and members of the kingdom of fungi. They are related to the familiar mushrooms and toadstools,differing only in not having their filaments united into large fruiting structures. When mould hyphae are numerous enough to be seen by the naked eye they form a cottony mass called a mycelium . It is the hyphae and resulting mycelia that invade things in our homes and cause them to decay.
Moulds reproduce by spores .
Unlike seeds, they are very simple in structure and never contain an embryo or any sort of preformed offspring. Spores are produced in a variety of ways and occur in a bewildering array of shapes and sizes. In spite of this diversity, spores are quite constant in shape, size, colour and form for any given mould, and are thus very useful for mould identification. The most basic difference between spores lies in their method of initiation, which can be either sexual or asexual. Sexually initiated spores result from a mating between two different organisms or hyphae, whereas asexual spores result from a simple internal division or external modification of an individual hypha.