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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘Fairy Clubs’.
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; simple, or compound; clustered (mostly), or solitary; clavarioid, erect-linear and unbranched, or erect-clavate and unbranched, or branched (without a distinct head); medium sized to large; 3–12 cm high; white or whitish and pink, or white or whitish and grey. The hymenium ribbed, or smooth. The basidia ‘unmodified’ (though with only two sterigmata); with only two (distal) sterigmata, these strongly curved. The basidiospores ballistosporic; hyaline; smooth; inamyloid.
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 inflated.
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies borne on the ground (humicolous). Found in grassy places, in coniferous woodland, in broad-leaved woodland, and in mixed woodland.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 7 species in Britain; Clavulicium, Clavulina, Membranomyces.
World representation. 38 species; genera 3. “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Cantharellales.
Illustrations. • Clavulina coralloides and Clavulina rugosa (LH). CLAVULINACEAE. 1, Clavulina coralloides; 2, Clavulina rugosa. Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965). • Clavulina rugosa (Berkeley). CLAVULINACEAE. 3, Clavulina rugosa (Bull.) J. Schrot. CLAVARIACEAE. 2, Clavaria amethystina (Bull.) Donk.; 4, Clavulinopsis umbrinella (Sacc.) Corner. AURICULARIACEAE. 1, Auricularia mesenterica (Dicks.) Pers.; 7, Auricularia auricula-judae (Jew's Ear). RAMARIACEAE. 5, Ramaria stricta (Pers.) Quél.). HELOTIACEAE. 6, Ascocoryne sarcoides (Jacq.) Groves & Wilson. DACRYMYCETACEAE. 8, Dacrymyces stillatus Nees. From Berkeley (1860).
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’.
