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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
Anamorphic forms not known.
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing asci and ascospores; tuberous to globose (often lobed, to 5 cm in diameter, warted); angiocarpic; tiny to medium sized; 0.5–5 cm across; buff, or yellowish-brown to light brown, or dark brown, or blackish; cleistothecial; comprising a perithecioid structure enclosing asci and spores (and paraphyses), with no stroma (the peridium very thick, usually strongly ornamented, the asci often developing in locules); stromata absent. The asci thin walled (evanescent). The walls of the asci not staining blue with iodine (?). The ascospores globose; variously ornamented; brown to blue-black; simple. Gleba at first dark (brown to greyish black).
The hyphae without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, double layered, with both layers electron dense.
Ecology. The fruit-bodies subterranean (mostly in surface layers). Associated mostly with conifers. Found mostly in coniferous woodland and in mixed woodland.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 8 species in Britain; Elaphomyces.
World representation. 20 species; genera 1. “Widespread”.
Classification. Ascomycota; Ascomycetes; Eurotiomycetidae; Elaphomycetales.
Illustrations. • Elaphomyces granulatus and E. muricatus (LH). ELAPHOMYCETACEAE. 1, Elaphomyces muricatus (parasitized by Cordyceps ophioglossoides); 2, Elaphomyes granulatus (parasitized by Cordyceps capitata). Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965). • Elaphomyces muricatus (Berkeley). ELAPHOMYCETACEAE. 3, Elaphomyces muricatus Fr. PYRONEMATACEAE. 1, Fimaria hepatica (Batsch) Brumm. TUBERACEAE. 2, Tuber aestivum Vittad. (Peasant's Truffle). CLAVICIPITACEAE. 4, Cordyceps militaris (L.) Link; 5, Cordyceps entomorrhiza (Dicks.) Fr.; 7, Claviceps purpurea (Fr.) Tul. HYPOCREACEAE. 6, Podostroma alutaceum (Pers.) G.F. Atk. 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’.
