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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
Anamorphic forms occurring (these hyphomycetous).
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing asci and ascospores; large, discoid, or cupulate; more or less sessile; small to medium sized; in Pseudoplectania nigrella, 1–4 cm across; gelatinous and somewhat translucent when moist, or not noticeably gelatinous when moist (leathery or somewhat gelatinous); usually not brightly pigmented (the disc usually pale or dark, sometimes shiny black); apothecial; producing asci and spores on an exposed hymenium (the interascal tissue of paraphyses, these often anastomaosing near the base); usually without carotenoid pigmentation; stromata absent. The asci cylindrical, persistent; asci operculate (the operculum often slightly sub-apical). The ascospores elongate; smooth, or ornamented (rarely); hyaline; simple; multinucleate. The peridium composed of intertwined hyphae, often on a gelatinous matrix, dark brown.
The hyphae without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, double layered, with both layers electron dense.
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies on dead wood.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 2 species in Britain (Plectania melastoma, Pseudoplectania nigrella); Plectania, Pseudoplectania.
World representation. 30 species; genera 14. Mainly temperate.
Classification. Ascomycota; Ascomycetes; Pezizomycetidae; Pezizales.
Illustrations. • Pseudoplectania nigrella (LH). SARCOSOMATACEAE. Pseudoplectania nigrella. 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’.
