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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘Lorchel’, ‘False Morel’.
~ Helvellaceae
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing asci and ascospores; erect-elongate, unbranched (to 12 cm or more high); capitate (the head sub-globose, contorted/convoluted and mop-like); solitary; stipitate; medium sized to large; 3–8 cm across; 5–12 cm high; white or whitish and dark brown, or white or whitish and blackish (with dark cap and light stipe); apothecial (large); producing asci and spores on an exposed hymenium; ascus-bearing hymenial layer strongly, conspicuously everted (to form the mop-like head); stromata absent. Asci operculate; the asci without obvious apical thickening; the asci thin walled. The walls of the asci not staining blue with iodine. The ascospores smooth; simple; tetranucleate; without appendages.
The hyphae without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, double layered, with both layers electron dense.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 7 species in Britain; Gyromitra.
World representation. 15 species; genera 1 (? - Gyromitra). Mainly North temperate.
Classification. Ascomycota; Ascomycetes; Pezizomycetidae; Pezizales.
Comments. Poisonous (e.g., G. esculenta has the heat-labile carcinogenic toxin, gyrometrin).
Illustrations. • Gyromitra esculenta (LH). DISCINACEAE. Gyromitra esculenta. Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965).
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’.
