Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their taxonomy, genetics, biochemical properties, and use by humans. Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and infection. Mycology branches into the field of phytopathology, the study of plant diseases. The two disciplines are closely related, because the vast majority of plant pathogens are fungi. A biologist specializing in mycology is called a mycologist.
Rolf Singer was a German-born mycologist and one of the most important taxonomists of gilled mushrooms (agarics) in the 20th century.
Secotioid fungi are an intermediate growth form between mushroom-like hymenomycetes and closed bag-shaped gasteromycetes, where an evolutionary process of gasteromycetation has started but not run to completion. Secotioid fungi may or may not have opening caps, but in any case they often lack the vertical geotropic orientation of the hymenophore needed to allow the spores to be dispersed by wind, and the basidiospores are not forcibly discharged or otherwise prevented from being dispersed —note—some mycologists do not consider a species to be secotioid unless it has lost ballistospory.
Edred John Henry Corner FRS was an English mycologist and botanist who occupied the posts of assistant director at the Singapore Botanic Gardens (1929–1946) and Professor of Tropical Botany at the University of Cambridge (1965–1973). Corner was a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College from 1959.
The Strophariaceae are a family of fungi in the order Agaricales. Under an older classification, the family covered 18 genera and 1316 species. The species of Strophariaceae have red-brown to dark brown spore prints, while the spores themselves are smooth and have an apical germ pore. These agarics are also characterized by having a cutis-type pileipellis. Ecologically, all species in this group are saprotrophs, growing on various kinds of decaying organic matter. The family was circumscribed in 1946 by mycologists Rolf Singer and Alexander H. Smith.
Kuehneromyces mutabilis, commonly known as the sheathed woodtuft, is an edible mushroom that grows in clumps on tree stumps or other dead wood. A few other species have been described in the genus Kuehneromyces, but K. mutabilis is by far the most common and best known.
Galerina marginata, known colloquially as funeral bell, deadly skullcap, autumn skullcap or deadly galerina, is a species of extremely poisonous mushroom-forming fungus in the family Hymenogastraceae of the order Agaricales. It contains the same deadly amatoxins found in the death cap. Ingestion in toxic amounts causes severe liver damage with vomiting, diarrhea, hypothermia, and eventual death if not treated rapidly. About ten poisonings have been attributed to the species now grouped as G. marginata over the last century.
Loreleia is a genus of brightly colored agarics in the Hymenochaetales that have an omphalinoid morphology. They inhabit mosses and or liverworts on soil in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Phylogenetically related agarics are in the genera Contumyces, Gyroflexus, Rickenella, Cantharellopsis and Blasiphalia, as well as the stipitate-stereoid genera Muscinupta and Cotylidia and the clavaroid genus, Alloclavaria. However, the large number of DNA base-pair changes causes a long-branch to form in phylogenetic analyses depicted as cladograms.
Alexander Hanchett Smith was an American mycologist known for his extensive contributions to the taxonomy and phylogeny of the higher fungi, especially the agarics.
Ripartitella is a genus of fungi in the family Agaricaceae. The genus was circumscribed by Rolf Singer in Mycologia vol.39 on page 85 in 1947.
Smithiogaster is a fungal genus in the family Agaricaceae. It is a monotypic genus, containing the single gasteroid species Smithiogaster volvoagaricus. Smithiogaster was circumscribed by J.E.Wright in 1975.
Robert Kühner was a French mycologist most notable for reviewing many forms of agaric genera.
Pegleromyces is a genus of fungi in the family Tricholomataceae. It is a monotypic genus, containing the single species Pegleromyces collybioides, found in Brazil, and described as new to science by mycologist Rolf Singer in 1981.
Haasiella is a fungal genus in the family Hygrophoraceae. It is a monotypic genus that contains only the species Haasiella splendidissima. Haasiella venustissima, formerly considered to be a distinct species based on its one and two-spored basidia, was found by a DNA study to be synonymous with H. splendidissima. H. splendidissima is only known from Europe and is saprotrophic on wood. Haasiella was described as a new genus in 1966 by Czech mycologists František Kotlaba and Zdeněk Pouzar. It is most closely related to the genus Hygrophorus.
Henningsomyces is a genus of fungi in the family Marasmiaceae.
Zelleromyces is a genus of fungi in the family Russulaceae. It was first described by mycologists Rolf Singer and Alexander H. Smith in 1960 to contain hypogeous (underground) fungi with gasteroid fruit bodies that "bleed" latex when they are cut.
Meottomyces is a small genus of relatively nondescript, fleshy, brown mushrooms related to Tubaria. In older classifications it had been included in Pholiota, Phaeogalera, or Hemipholiota. Modern molecular evidence suggested recognition of a separate genus when sequences of a collection first identified as Pholiota oedipus, now reclassified in Meottomyces, revealed a unique branch. Subsequently, that species was studied by Holec and later as Phaeogalera oedipus was shown to be distinct from Tubaria but not the type of Phaeogalera itself. Additional phylogenetic support was provided by Gitte Petersen and others, who clearly showed a separation from Phaeogalera. The genus was erected by Vizzini, for two species and two varieties, all former members of Pholiota. Vizzini treated the name Pholiota oedipus as a misapplied name, but this was contested by Legon, who provided detailed notes on the types and ecology of the type species.
David Norman Pegler is a British mycologist. Until his retirement in 1998, he served as the Head of Mycology and assistant keeper of the herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. Pegler received his BSc from London University in 1960, thereafter studying tropical Agaricales with R.W.G. Dennis as his graduate supervisor. He earned a master's degree in 1966, and a PhD in 1974. His graduate thesis was on agarics of east Africa, later published as A preliminary agaric flora of East Africa in 1977. In 1989, London University awarded him a DSc for his research into the Agaricales.
