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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
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; pale, white or whitish, or grey. The hymenium with pegs or spinose (odontoid, with hyphal pegs). The hymenial layer not readily separable from the supporting flesh. Cystidia present, or absent (? - but skeletocystidia absent, unlike Steccherinaceae). Hyphidia represented by dendrohyphidia. The basidia ‘unmodified’; not of the ceratobasidialean type (q.v.). The basidiospores very large, fusiform; ballistosporic; hyaline; inamyloid.
The hyphal walls lamellate, with a thin, electron-dense outer layer and a relatively thick, electron-transparent inner layer. The hyphae dimitic. The generative hyphae not inflated.
Ecology. Parasitic, or saprophytic; on vascular plants. Specialising in monocots.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 1 species in Britain (E. typhae); Epithele.
World representation. 13 species; genera 3. “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Polyporales (formerly Stereales).
Illustrations. • Epithele typhae (Petersens). EPITHELIACEAE. Epithele typhae. Photo from www.mycokey.com (Jens H. Petersens).
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’.
