The Russulales are an order of the Agaricomycetes,. According to the Dictionary of the Fungi, the order consists of 12 families, 80 genera, and 1767 species. According to Species Fungorum, the order contains 13 families, 117 genera, and 3,060 species.
The fungal order Agaricales, also known as gilled mushrooms or euagarics, contains some of the most familiar types of mushrooms. The order has 33 extant families, 413 genera, and over 13,000 described species, along with six extinct genera known only from the fossil record. They range from the ubiquitous common mushroom to the deadly destroying angel and the hallucinogenic fly agaric to the bioluminescent jack-o-lantern mushroom.
A lamella, or gill, is a papery hymenophore rib under the cap of some mushroom species, most often but not always agarics. The gills are used by the mushrooms as a means of spore dispersal, and are important for species identification. The attachment of the gills to the stem is classified based on the shape of the gills when viewed from the side, while color, crowding and the shape of individual gills can also be important features. Additionally, gills can have distinctive microscopic or macroscopic features. For instance, Lactarius species typically seep latex from their gills.
The Hymenochaetales are an order of fungi in the class Agaricomycetes. The order in its current sense is based on molecular research and not on any unifying morphological characteristics. According to one 2008 estimate, the Hymenochaetales contain around 600 species worldwide, mostly corticioid fungi and poroid fungi, but also including several clavarioid fungi and agarics. Species of economic importance include wood decay fungi in the genera Phellinus and Inonotus sensu lato, some of which may cause losses in forestry. Therapeutic properties are claimed for Inonotus obliquus ("chaga") and Phellinus linteus, both of which are now commercially marketed.
The Marasmiaceae are a family of basidiomycete fungi which have white spores. They mostly have tough stems and the capability of shrivelling up during a dry period and later recovering. The widely consumed edible fungus Lentinula edodes, the shiitake mushroom, is a member of this family. According to a 2008 estimate, the family contains 54 genera and 1590 species.
The Clavulinaceae are a family of fungi in the order Cantharellales. The family is not well defined, but currently comprises species of clavarioid fungi as well as some corticioid fungi. These species are nutritionally diverse, some being ectomycorrhizal, others wood-rotting saprotrophs, others lichenized, and yet others lichenicolous.
The Auriscalpiaceae are a family of fungi in the order Russulales. Like much of the Russulales, it has been defined through molecular phylogeny, and includes physically dissimilar species, such as the tooth fungus Auriscalpium and the gilled, often shelf-like members of Lentinellus.
The Bondarzewiaceae are a family of fungi in the order Russulales. The type species for both its genus and the family as a whole, Bondarzewia montana, closely resembles members of Polyporales, but has ornamented spores like those of Lactarius or Russula. This characteristic suggested the relationship between physically dissimilar species that eventually led to the restructuring of Russulales using molecular phylogeny. According to the Dictionary of the Fungi, the family contains 8 genera and 48 species.
Gyroflexus is a monotypic genus with a yellowish-ivory colored omphalinoid agaric in the Hymenochaetales that grows on living Sphagnum Phylogenetically related agarics are in the genera Rickenella, Blasiphalia, Loreleia, Cantharellopsis and Contumyces, as well as the stipitate-stereoid genera Muscinupta and Cotylidia and clavaroid genus, Alloclavaria. Gyroflexus brevibasidiatus, the type, amongst the vaguely omphalinoid genera is distinguished by its small, mammiform pileus, growth on Sphagnum, and lack of cystidia.
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.
Cantharellopsis is a tan- to whitish-colored bryophilous monotypic genus in the Hymenochaetales. The fruit bodies of the single species Cantharellus prescotii has a form intermediate between an Omphalina and a chanterelle (Cantharellus) because of its forked, fold-like gills. It inhabits moss on calcareous soils in temperate regions of Europe. Phylogenetically related agarics are in the genera Contumyces, Gyroflexus, Loreleia, Rickenella and Blasiphalia, as well as the stipitate-stereoid genera Muscinupta and Cotylidia and the clavarioid genus, Alloclavaria.
Cotylidia is a fungal genus characterized by small to moderately sized, white to palely yet brightly colored, stalked, fan-shaped to funnel-shaped fruit bodies with a smooth to wrinkled hymenium, tissues composed of monomitic hyphae, basidia producing smooth, nonamyloid spores, the absence of clamp connections, and bearing projecting cylindrical, thin-walled, hymenial cystidia. The genus is classified in the Hymenochaetales, however the type species, C. undulata has not yet been sequenced. Phylogenetically-related agaricoid fungi to the two species of Cotylidia thus far sequenced are in the genera Rickenella, Contumyces, Gyroflexus, Loreleia, Cantharellopsis and Blasiphalia, and Muscinupta and the clavarioid genus, Alloclavaria.
Alloclavaria is a clavarioid genus in the Hymenochaetales recently segregated from Clavaria by molecular analysis. Phylogenetically related fungi are in the agaricoid genera Rickenella, Contumyces, Gyroflexus, Loreleia, Cantharellopsis and Blasiphalia, as well as the stipitate stereoid genera Cotylidia and Muscinupta. The only species as yet placed in Alloclavaria is the type, formerly known as Clavaria purpurea under which name it is often cited or illustrated.. It is suspected, via circumstantial evidence, i.e. habitat, but not proven, that Alloclavaria is mycorrhizal.
Lentinellus is a genus of white rot, wood decay, lamellate agaric in the family Auriscalpiaceae, further characterized in part by rough-walled, amyloid spores produced on lamellae with jagged edges. Typically, thick-walled hyphae in the fruit body are in part amyloid, and frequently the taste of the mushrooms is acrid. The widespread genus has been estimated to contain 15 species. Mycologists Ronald Petersen and Karen Hughes considered 24 species in their 2004 world monograph of the genus.
The Hydnaceae are a family of fungi in the order Cantharellales. Originally the family encompassed all species of fungi that produced basidiocarps having a hymenium consisting of slender, downward-hanging tapering extensions referred to as "spines" or "teeth", whether they were related or not. This artificial but often useful grouping is now more generally called the hydnoid or tooth fungi. In the strict, modern sense, the Hydnaceae are limited to the genus Hydnum and related genera, with basidiocarps having a toothed or poroid hymenium. Species in the family are ectomycorrhizal, forming a mutually beneficial relationship with the roots of trees and other plants. Hydnum repandum is an edible species, commercially collected in some countries and often marketed under the French name pied de mouton.
The Physalacriaceae are a family of fungi in the order Agaricales. Species in the family have a widespread distribution, ranging from the Arctic, (Rhizomarasmius), to the tropics, e.g. Gloiocephala, and from marine sites (Mycaureola) and fresh waters (Gloiocephala) to semiarid forests (Xerula).
The Echinodontiaceae are a family of crust fungi in the order Russulales. Species of this family, divided amongst two genera—Echinodontium and Laurilia—have a widespread distribution, although they are especially predominant in north temperate zones. They are parasitic or saprobic on wood, and may cause white rot of angiosperms and gymnosperms.
Hericium is a genus of edible mushrooms in the family Hericiaceae. Species in this genus are white and fleshy and grow on dead or dying wood; fruiting bodies resemble a mass of fragile icicle-like spines that are suspended from either a branched supporting framework or from a tough, unbranched cushion of tissue. This distinctive structure has earned Hericium species a variety of common names—monkey's head, lion's mane, and bear's head are examples. Taxonomically, this genus was previously placed within the order Aphyllophorales, but recent molecular studies now place it in the Russulales.
Pseudoomphalina is a genus of fungi in the placed in the family Tricholomataceae for convenience. The genus contains six species that are widespread in northern temperate areas. Pseudoomphalina was circumscribed by Rolf Singer in 1956. Pseudoomphalina was found to be paraphyletic to Neohygrophorus in a molecular phylogenetics study and since Pseudoomphalina is an older name, Neohygrophyorus was synonymized with it. The type species of Neohygrophorus was Neohygrophorus angelesianus, now Pseudoomphalina angelesiana. In earlier classifications based on anatomy prior to DNA sequence-based classifications, its unusual combination of features led taxonomists to independently create two subgenera in two genera: Hygrophorus subg. Pseudohygrophorus and Clitocybe subg. Mutabiles; the latter based on Neohygrophorus angelesianus but described under a new species name which is now placed in synonymy, Clitocybe mutabilis. All species of Pseudoomphalina are united by the presence of clamp-connections in their hyphae, an interwoven gill trama and amyloid spores. Pseudoomphalina angelesiana possesses grey-violaceous pigments that turn red in alkali solutions and lacks filiform, hyphal sterile elements in its hymenium and stipitipellis. These were features used to distinguish it from Pseudoomphalina as a genus, but Pseudoomphalina umbrinopurpurascens possesses these same pigments and the filiform elements of Pseudoomphalina. Molecular phylogenetics studies have also found some former species of Pseudoomphalina to belong in other genera. Pseudoomphalina pachyphylla was moved to its own genus, Pseudolaccaria, and Pseudoomphalina clusiliformis was synonymized with it. Pseudoomphalina flavoaurantia and Pseudoomphalina lignicola were found to belong in Clitocybula. Phylogenetically, Pseudoomphalina is in a tricholomatoid clade but not in the Tricholomataceae.
The Ceraceosorales are an order of smut fungi in the class Exobasidiomycetes. It is a monotypic order, consisting of a single family, the Ceraceosoraceae, which in turn contain a single monotypic genus, Ceraceosorus. C. bombacis is a fungus that infects the tree Bombax ceiba in India. This economically important tree is used as an ornamental tree. Ceraceosorales was circumscribed in 2006; the family Ceraceosoraceae was validated in 2009. C. bombacis was originally described as Dicellomyces bombacis in 1973, but B.K. Bakshi transferred it to the newly described Ceraceosorus three years later.
