| | The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘Cup Fungi’.
Anamorphic forms occurring (these hyphomycetaceous).
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing asci and ascospores; persistent; when epigeous, flat-irregular, or discoid to cupulate, or tuberous to globose (formed from a single ascogonium or ascogonial coil); clustered, or solitary; usually sessile; tiny to small, or small to large; 1–6(–8) cm across, or 0.5–1.5 cm across (in Pachyphloeus melanoxanthus); not noticeably gelatinous when moist; brightly pigmented, or not brightly pigmented; cream or yellowish to straw-coloured, or yellowish-brown, or light brown to purplish brown, or dark brown, or olive, or orange, or yellow, or lilac, or blackish (etc.); apothecial, or perithecial, or cleistothecial; comprising a perithecioid structure enclosing asci and spores (and paraphyses), with no stroma; without carotenoid pigmentation; stromata absent. The asci elongated; asci operculate, or inoperculate (then opening via an apical slit); with more or less conspicuous apical thickening, or without obvious apical thickening; thin walled. The walls of the asci staining blue with iodine (at least near the tip). The ascospores smooth, or ornamented (often guttate); pale brown, or hyaline; simple; uninucleate; without a mucilaginous sheath.
The hyphae without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, double layered, with both layers electron dense.
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies subterranean (or almost so, when cleistothecial), or not subterranean; when epigeal, borne on the ground (variously on bare soil, in humus, on dung, on decaying leaves or conifer needles, etc), or on dead wood (often on very rotten wood, or decaying twigs and branches, etc.). Found in grassy places, in heathland, in coniferous woodland, in broad-leaved woodland, in mixed woodland, and in places modified by human activities.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. About 115 species in Britain (with almost 100 in Peziza); Boudiera, Hydnobolites, Iodophanus, Pachyella, Pachyphloeus, Peziza, Plicaria, Sarcosphaera, Sphaerozone.
World representation. 160 species; genera 19. Cosmopolitan.
Classification. Ascomycota; Ascomycetes; Pezizomycetidae; Pezizales.
Comments. ‘Operculate Discomycetes’.
Illustrations. • Pachyphloeus melanoxanthus, Peziza badia, P. repanda, P. saniosa, P. succosa, P. vesiculosa (LH). PEZIZACEAE. 1, Peziza saniosa; 2, Peziza succosa; 3, Peziza badia; 4, Peziza vesiculosa; 5, Peziza repanda; 6, Pachyphloeus melanoxanthus. • Peziza repanda, photo: A. Myers. • Peziza badia and P. micropus (Berkeley). PEZIZACEAE. 4, Peziza badia Pers.; 5, Peziza micropus Pers. LEOTIACEAE. 1, Leotia lubrica (Scop.) Pers. GEOGLOSSACEAE. 2, Trichoglossum hirsutum var. hirsutum (Pers.) Boud. MORCHELLACEAE. 6. Disciotis venosa var. reticulata (Grev.) Boud. BULGARIACEAE. 7, Bulgaria inquinans (Pers.) Fr. HELOTIALES incertis sedis. 3, Microglossum olivaceum (Pers.) Gillet. 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’.
