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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘False Truffles’.
~Paxillaceae
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; angiocarpic; a globose or tuberiform gasterocarp (the gleba with small locules and no real hymenium, mucilaginous at maturity); small to medium sized; in M. broomeanus, 1–4 cm across; dull reddish-brown, or purplish brown, or blackish; with no particular odour other than an ordinary fungoid one. The basidia ‘unmodified’. The basidiospores fusoid; statismosporic; brown, or brown-black; smooth.
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.
Chemical reactions. Supposedly not yielding prenylated phenols and quinones.
Ecology. The fruit-bodies not subterranean; borne on the ground (in humus litter). Associated with broad-leaved trees. Mostly under broad-leaved trees, especially beech. Found in broad-leaved woodland and in mixed woodland.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 4 species in Britain; Melanogaster.
World representation. 25 species; genera 2. “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Boletales.
Comments. Edible (formerly sold as an alternative to truffles). Real hymenium absent, the gasterocarp mucilaginous at maturity.
Illustrations. • Melanogaster broomeanus (LH). MELANOGASTRACEAE. Melanogaster broomeanus. 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’.
