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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘Skin Fungi’.
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; persistent; simple, or compound; clustered, or solitary; attached laterally and bracket-shaped to fan-shaped, or flattened and more or less appressed to the substrate or encrusting, with the hymenium on the outside, or branched (but mostly fan-shaped or resupinate); medium sized to large; 3–8 cm broad, in Thelephora palmata; 3–5(–6) cm high (in T. palmata); purplish brown (or violaceous brown), or dark brown, or blackish. The hymenium porose (very rarely), or with pegs or spinose to smooth (smooth to papillate, or toothed in stalked forms, rarely pseudo-lamellate). The basidia ‘unmodified’; not of the ceratobasidialean type (q.v.). The basidiospores globose to ellipsoid, often uneven in outline; ornamented; inamyloid.
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 not inflated.
Chemical reactions. The context hyphae not xanthochroic; releasing green pigment when treated with KOH (owing to presence of thelephoric acid; not cyanophilous).
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies not subterranean; borne on the ground (humicolous), or on dead wood (less often). Found in grassy places, in heathland, in coniferous woodland, in broad-leaved woodland, and in mixed woodland.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. About 65 species in Britain (mostly in Thelephora and Tomentella); Amaurodon, Hydnopsis, Pseudotomentella, Thelephora, Tomentella.
World representation. 80 species; genera 13. “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Thelephorales.
Comments. Releasing a green pigment in alkali.
Illustrations. • Thelephora palmata and Thelephora terrestris (LH). THELEPHORACEAE. 1, Thelephora terrestris; 2, Thelephora palmata. Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965). • Thelephora anthocephala, and T. mollissima (Berkeley). THELEPHORACEAE. 4, Thelephora anthocephala (Bull.) Fr.; 5, Thelephora mollissima Pers. FISTULINACEAE. 1, Fistulina hepatica (Lightf.) With. (Beefsteak Fungus). HYDNACEAE. 2, Hydnum repandum L. MERULIACEAE. 3, Mycoacia uda (Fr.) Donk. EXIDIACEAE. 6, Sebacina incrustans (Pers.) Tul. & C. Tul. STEREACEAE. 7, Stereum hirsutum (Willd.) Gray. From Berkeley (1860).
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’.
