Basidiomycota is one of two large divisions that, together with the Ascomycota, constitute the subkingdom Dikarya within the kingdom Fungi. Members are known as basidiomycetes. More specifically, Basidiomycota includes these groups: agarics, puffballs, stinkhorns, bracket fungi, other polypores, jelly fungi, boletes, chanterelles, earth stars, smuts, bunts, rusts, mirror yeasts, and Cryptococcus, the human pathogenic yeast.
Rusts are fungal plant pathogens of the order Pucciniales causing plant fungal diseases.
Corn smut is a plant disease caused by the pathogenic fungus Ustilago maydis. One of several cereal crop pathogens called smut, the fungus forms galls on all above-ground parts of corn species such as maize and teosinte. The infected corn is edible; in Mexico, it is considered a delicacy called huitlacoche, often eaten as a filling in quesadillas and other tortilla-based foods, as well as in soups.
The smuts are multicellular fungi characterized by their large numbers of teliospores. The smuts get their name from a Germanic word for 'dirt' because of their dark, thick-walled, and dust-like teliospores. They are mostly Ustilaginomycetes and comprise seven of the 15 orders of the subphylum. Most described smuts belong to two orders, Ustilaginales and Tilletiales. The smuts are normally grouped with the other basidiomycetes because of their commonalities concerning sexual reproduction.
Andropogon gerardi, commonly known as big bluestem, is a species of tall grass native to much of the Great Plains and grassland regions of central and eastern North America. It is also known as tall bluestem, bluejoint, and turkeyfoot.
Sugarcane smut is a fungal disease of sugarcane caused by the fungus Sporisorium scitamineum. The disease is known as culmicolous, which describes the outgrowth of fungus of the stalk on the cane. It attacks several sugarcane species and has been reported to occur on a few other grass species as well, but not to a critical amount. The most recognizable characteristic of this disease is a black or gray growth that is referred to as a "smut whip". Resistance to sugarcane smut is the best course of action for management, but also the use of disease free seed is important. On smaller scale operations treatments using hot water and removing infected plants can be effective. The main mode of spore dispersal is the wind but the disease also spreads through the use of infected cuttings. Sugarcane smut is a devastating disease in sugarcane growing areas globally.
Loose smut of barley is caused by Ustilago nuda. It is a disease that can destroy a large proportion of a barley crop. Loose smut replaces grain heads with smut, or masses of spores which infect the open flowers of healthy plants and grow into the seed, without showing any symptoms. Seeds appear healthy and only when they reach maturity the following season is it clear that they were infected. Systemic fungicides are the major control method for loose smut.
Sporisorium sorghi, commonly known as sorghum smut, is a plant pathogen that belongs to the Ustilaginaceae family. This fungus is the causative agent of covered kernel smut disease and infects sorghum plants all around the world such as Sorghum bicolor (sorghum), S. sudanense, S. halepense and Sorghumvulgare var. technichum (broomcorn). Ineffective control of S. sorghi can have serious economic and ecological implications.
Sporisorium reilianum Langdon & Full., (1978), previously known as Sphacelotheca reiliana, and Sporisorium reilianum, is a species of biotrophic fungus in the family Ustilaginaceae. It is a plant pathogen that infects maize and sorghum.
Exobasidium vaccinii, commonly known as “red leaf disease,” or “Azalea Gall,” is a biotrophic species of fungus that causes galls on ericaceous plant species, such as blueberry and azalea. Exobasidium vaccinii is considered the type species of the Exobasidium genus. As a member of the Ustilagomycota, it is a basidiomycete closely related to smut fungi. Karl Wilhelm Gottlieb Leopold Fuckel first described the species in 1861 under the basionym Fusidium vaccinii, but in 1867 Mikhail Stepanovich Voronin later placed it in the genus Exobasidium. The type specimen is from Germany, and it is held in the Swedish Museum of Natural History. Exobasidium vaccinii, in current definition from John Axel Nannfeldt in 1981, is limited on the host Vaccinium vitis-idaea. This idea is used in most recent papers on E. vaccinii.
Thecaphora is a genus of basidiomycote fungus which contains several species of plant pathogens. The widespread genus contained about 57 species in 2008. and held 61 species in 2020.
Salmacisia is a fungal genus in the family Tilletiaceae. It is a monotypic genus, containing the single species Salmacisia buchloëana, first described as Tilletia buchloëana in 1889, and renamed in 2008. Plants infected by the fungus undergo a phenomenon known as "parasitically induced hermaphroditism", whereby ovary development is induced in otherwise male plants. Because of the pistil-inducing effects of the fungus, the authors have named the species pistil smut; it is the only species in the order Tilletiales known to have hermaphroditic effects.
Job Bicknell Ellis was a pioneering North American mycologist known for his study of ascomycetes, especially the grouping of fungi called the Pyrenomycetes. Born and raised in New York, he worked as a teacher and farmer before developing an interest in mycology. He collected specimens extensively, and together with his wife, prepared 200,000 sets of dried fungal samples that were sent out to subscribers in series between 1878 and 1894. Together with colleagues William A. Kellerman and Benjamin Matlack Everhart, he founded the Journal of Mycology in 1885, forerunner to the modern journal Mycologia. He described over 4000 species of fungi, and his collection of over 100,000 specimens is currently housed at the herbarium of the New York Botanical Gardens. Ellis had over 100 taxa of fungi named in his honor.
Yelsemia is a genus of smut fungi in the family Melanotaeniaceae, containing four species.
Sporisorium ehrenbergi is a species of fungus in the Ustilaginaceae family. It is a plant pathogen, causing long smut of Sorghum spp.
Ustilago esculenta is a species of fungus in the Ustilaginaceae, a family of smut fungi. It is in the same genus as the fungi that cause corn smut, loose smut of barley, false loose smut, covered smut of barley, loose smut of oats, and other grass diseases. This species is pathogenic as well, attacking Manchurian wild rice, also known as Manchurian ricegrass, Asian wild rice, and wateroat. This grass is its only known host.
Kálmán Géza Vánky was a Hungarian mycologist with Swedish and Hungarian citizenship, who lived in Germany. He was considered to be the worldwide authority on the subject of smut fungi and has dominated the taxonomic study of Ustilaginomycetes for at least the past four decades.
Microbotryum violaceum is a host-specific anther smut (fungus) disease that infects Silene latifolia and sterilizes the host plant. When infected with this disease, the flowers generate pathogenic spores, which can then be transferred to other plants by pollinating insects. Therefore, this disease is sometimes classified as a sexually transmitted infection.
Macalpinomyces is a fungus genus in the Ustilaginaceae family.
Thecaphora frezzii, commonly referred to as peanut smut, is a species of smut fungus of the genus Thecaphora and the family Glomosporiaceae. It is a basidiomycete fungus that infects peanut plants. It is currently only found in South America, more specifically in Argentinian peanut farms.
