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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
Botryobasidiaceae
Anamorphic forms occurring.
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; persistent; flattened and more or less appressed to the substrate or encrusting, with the hymenium on the outside (resupinate, smooth); of indeterminate size and shapw, small to large; brightly pigmented, or not brightly pigmented (mostly); white or whitish, or buff to straw-coloured, or yellowish-brown, or light brown, or orange, or blue, or grey, or blackish. The hymenium smooth. Cystidia absent (from the hymenium). The basidia ‘unmodified’ (short, clustered); 4-sterigmate to 5–8 sterigmate (4–6(-8)). The basidiospores ballistosporic; hyaline; smooth; inamyloid (Hawksworth et al.).
The hyphal walls lamellate, with a thin, electron-dense outer layer and a relatively thick, electron-transparent inner layer. The hyphae monomitic. The generative hyphae not inflated. The context hyphae exhibiting distinctive right-angled branching.
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies often on dead wood. Associated with broad-leaved trees and with conifers. On many substrates, including dead polypores as well as hard- and soft-woods.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 14 species in Britain; Botryobasidium, Botryohypochnus.
World representation. 52 species; genera 2. “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Cantharellales (formerly Stereales).
Illustrations. • Botriobasidium aureum, conspersum and subcoronatum, Botriohypochnus isabellinus (Læssøe & Petersens). BOTRIOBASIDIACEAE. 1, Botriobasidium subcoronatum; 2, Botriobasidium conspersum; 3, Botryobasidium aureum (with the buff anamorp, Haplotriche aureum). 4, Botriohypnochus isabellinus. Photos from www.mycokey.com (Thomas Læssøe & Jens H. Petersens). • Botriobasidium subcoronatum: anatomical detail (G. Langer). BOTRIOBASIDIACEAE. Vertical section through basidioma of Botriobasidium subcoronatum. Showing characteristic right-angled hyphal branching, and basidia with more than 4 sterigmata. Langer, G. (1994). Bibl. Mycol. 158: 1–459.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2008 onwards. The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland. Version: 5th August 2019. delta-intkey.com’.
