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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘Bird Nest Fungi’.
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; angiocarpic; maturing to form a tiny cup, with a cover of velvety tissue which disintegrates to reveal a “nest” full of little, spring-loaded “eggs”, the latter being dispersed full of spores (i.e., the gasterocarp nest- or funnel-like, with a circumsessile epiphragm; the gleba comprises one to seven individual glebal chambers with hardened walls (peridioles), which are distributed by a splash-cup mechanism); tiny to small; 0.5–2 cm across; 0.5–2 cm high. The basidia ‘unmodified’. The basidiospores often large; statismosporic; hyaline; smooth.
The hyphal walls lamellate, with a thin, electron-dense outer layer and a relatively thick, electron-transparent inner layer.
Ecology. The fruit-bodies borne on the ground, or on dead wood (sometimes on soil, but mostly on sticks, fir cones, etc.). Found in coniferous woodland, in broad-leaved woodland, and in mixed woodland.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. Crucibulum, Cyathus, Mycocalia, Nidularia.
World representation. 56 species; genera 4. “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Agaricales.
Comments. The gasterocarp small, only 1–10 mm in diameter.
Illustrations. • Crucibulum laeve, Cyathus olla, Cyathus striatus (LH). NIDULARIACEAE. 1, Cyathus striatus; 2, Cyathus olla. 3, Crucibulum laeve. Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965). • Cyathus olla (Berkeley). NIDULARIACEAE. 1, Cyathus olla (Batsch) Pers. GEASTRACEAE. 2, Sphaerobolus stellatus Tode. ANAMORPHIC FUNGUS. 3, Anthina flammea Fr. HELVELLACEAE. 4, Helvella crispa (Scop.) Fr. (False Morel). MORCHELLACEAE. 5, Morchella esculenta (L.) Pers. (Morel); 6, Verpa digitaliformis Pers. CUDONIACEAE. 7, Spathularia flavida Pers. From Berkeley (1860). • Crucibulum laeve and Cyathus striatus (Berkeley). NIDULARIACEAE. 2, Crucibulum laeve (Huds.) Kambly; 3, Cyathus striatus (Huds.) Hoffm. CONIOPHORACEAE. 1, Serpula lacrymans Fr. (Dry Rot Fungus). PUCCINIACEAE. 4, Gymnosporangium sabinae (Dicks.) Winter; 5, Gymnosporangium juniperae Link. HELOTIACEAE. 6, Chlorencoelia versiformis (Pers.) Dixon; 7, Ascocoryne sarcoides (Jacq.) Groves. `FUNGOID Flowering Plant': 8, Balanophora sp. From Berkeley (1860). • An unidentified Bird's nest fungus from Ecuador: Ecominga reserve, 2011.
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’.
