|
| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘Soft Puff-Balls’.
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; clustered, or solitary; angiocarpic; a globose or tuberiform gasterocarp (the gleba powdery); tiny to very large; 1–5 cm across, or 6–30 cm across; 1–30 cm high; white or whitish, or cream or yellowish, or straw-coloured, or light brown, or purplish brown, or dark brown, or grey, or blackish; with no particular odour other than an ordinary fungoid one. The gasterocarp with a columella. Capilliteum present. Gleba at first pale. The peridium dehiscent; opening via an apical pore, or opening irregularly (then by apical fragmentation and flaking away). The basidia ‘unmodified’; maturing simultaneously. The basidiospores statismosporic; brown; ornamented (obtusely verruculose).
The hyphae without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, with a thin, electron-dense outer layer and a relatively thick, electron-transparent inner layer.
Ecology. The fruit-bodies not subterranean; borne on the ground. Found in grassy places, in heathland, in broad-leaved woodland, in mixed woodland, in coniferous woodland, and in places modified by human activities.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. Bovista, Bovistella, Calvatia, Handkea, Lycoperdon, Vascellum.
World representation. 158 species; genera 18. “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Agaricales.
Comments. Several Lycoperdon species edible (when young, L. giganteum being very good). White-fleshed puff-balls with an initially soft outer skin, which becomes papery at maturity and opens apically by bursting or via a pore.
Illustrations. • Bovista (3 spp.), Handkea (2 spp.), and Vascellum pratense (LH). LYCOPERDACEAE. 1, Bovista nigrescens; 2, Bovista dermoxantha; 3, Bovista plumbea. 4, Handkea utriformis; 5, Handkea exculpiformis. 6, Vascellum pratense. Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965). • Calvatia gigantea, Lycoperdon echinatum, L. molle, L. perlatum, L. pyriforme (LH). LYCOPERDACEAE. 1, Calvatia gigantea. 2, Lycoperdon molle; 3, Lycoperdon echinatum; 4, Lycoperdon pyriforme; 5, Lycoperdon perlatum. Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965). • Bovista nigrescens, B. plumbea, Handkea utriformis, Lycoperdon sp. (Berkeley). LYCOPERDACEAE. 5, Bovista nigrescens Pers.; 6, Bovista plumbea Pers.; 7, Handkea utriformis (Bull.) Pers.; 8, Lycoperdon umbrinum Pers, or Lycoperdon molle Pers.? HYMENOGASTERACEAE. 2, Hymenogaster citrinus Vittad. STEPHANOSPORACEAE. 1, Stephanospora caroticola (Berk.) Pat. PHALLACEAE. 3, Phallus impudicus L. (Stinkhorn). GEASTRACEAE. 4, Geastrum fimbriatum Fr. From Berkeley (1860). All about 1.5 X life size, or with sections more enlarged. • Bovista plumbea (from Curtis, 1831).
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’.
