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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; simple, or compound; erect, differentiated into a stipe and pileus with the hymenium underneath the latter, or branched (pileate or ramarioid). The hymenium ribbed, or smooth. Hyphidia represented by dichohyphidia (often). The basidia ‘unmodified’.
The hyphae with clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, with a thin, electron-dense outer layer and a relatively thick, electron-transparent inner layer.
Chemical reactions. The context hyphae xanthochroic.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 9 species in Britain; Asterostroma, Dichostereum, Scytinostroma, Vararia.
World representation. 115 species; genera 7. “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Russulales.
Comments. Catahymenial (i.e., hyphidia being the first-formed hymenial elements, the basidia being embedded at various levels and reaching the surface by elongation, not forming a palisade), dichohyphae and/or dichohyphidia present, and setoid structures absent - these features contrasting with Hymenochaetaceae.
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’.