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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; ephemeral; compound; clustered to solitary; branched (erect or decumbent, much branched from the base, the branches filiform, at first pale ochre to brownish or sometimes lilac tinged, but the whole plant drying black, 1–5 cm high); small to medium sized; 1.5–6 cm high. The hymenium smooth, or irregularly folded, ridged or wrinkled. The basidia ‘unmodified’. The basidiospores white; smooth; inamyloid.
The hyphae with clamp connections, or without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, with a thin, electron-dense outer layer and a relatively thick, electron-transparent inner layer. The hyphae dimitic (with skeletal hyphae). The generative hyphae inflated.
Chemical reactions. The context hyphae not xanthochroic; negative to ferric chloride.
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies borne on the ground (humicolous), or on dead wood. Found in coniferous woodland (on decaying needles and branches).
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 5 species in Britain; Pterula.
World representation. 63 species; genera 7. Widespread, especially tropical.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Agaricales.
Comments. Basidioma amphigenous.
Illustrations. • Pterula multifida (LH). PTERULACEAE. Pterula multifida, from 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’.
