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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; ephemeral; simple, or compound; erect-linear and unbranched, or branched (small, erect, rather clavarioid but with differentiated stipes and solid heads, often arising from sclerotia); brightly pigmented to not brightly pigmented; dark red, or pink (or rose), or white or whitish, or blackish (etc., but commonly dirty-whitish). Cystidia absent. The basidia ‘unmodified’; 4-sterigmate. The basidiospores ballistosporic.
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. The context hyphae not xanthochroic; negative to ferric chloride.
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies on dead wood (or epiphyllous).
Representation in Britain and Ireland. About 30 species in Britain; Pistillaria, Typhula.
World representation. 123 species; genera 4. Widespread temperate.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Agaricales.
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’.