|
| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
‘Stalked puff-balls’.
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; ephemeral; angiocarpic; comprising a 1–2 cm. diameter head with a small, terminal pore, borne at ground level, atop a long, fibrillose, subterranean stipe (with apical dehiscence, the gleba compact, finally powdery); medium sized to large; with the head 1–2 cm across; 3–7 cm high (the stipe 2–5 cm). The basidia ‘unmodified’. The basidiospores statismosporic.
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 (at least, with its spore-bearing upper component exposed). Found usually in sand dunes, but occasionally recorded from old walls.
Representation in Britain and Ireland. Battarrea, Queletia, Schizostoma, Tulostoma.
World representation. 87 species; genera 6. Widespread, but mainly in dry regions.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Agaricales.
Comments. The basidium pleurosporous.
Illustrations. • Tulostoma brumale (LH). TULOSTOMATACEAE. Tulostoma brumale. Sunesen & Dahlstrøm, in Lange & Hora (1965).
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’.
