Sclerodermataceae

Sclerodermataceae
Scleroderma citrinum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Fungi
Division: Basidiomycota
Class: Agaricomycetes
Order: Boletales
Family: Sclerodermataceae
Corda (1842)

The Sclerodermataceae are a family of fungi in the order Boletales, containing several genera of unusual fungi that little resemble boletes. Taxa, which include species commonly known as the ‘hard-skinned puffballs’, ‘earthballs’, or 'earthstars', are widespread in both temperate and tropical regions.[1] The best known members include the earthball Scleroderma citrinum, the dye fungus Pisolithus tinctorius and the 'prettymouths' of the genus Calostoma.

Contents

Description

Fruit-bodies are mostly epigenous (above ground), rarely hypogeous (underground), more or less spherical in shape, without a stem or with an irregular root-like stem. The peridium (outer wall) is mostly simple, rarely 2-layered, firm, rarely thin, membranous, breaking open irregularly or in lobes or decaying, revealing the gleba. The gleba typically has sharply defined basidia-bearing sectors, which are partitioned from one another by sterile veins, and in which the basidia are regularly scattered through the tissue. The gleba, which is brown or white in young specimens, turns dark purple to brownish purple in age, and crumbles to a powder of spores and disintegrating tissues at maturity. The basidia are roughly clavate (club-shaped). Spores are brown, roughly spherical in shape, thick-walled, with spines or warts, or with a network-like appearance. Spores are spread by wind, by predators, or are washed into the soil by rainwater.[1][2][3]

Habitat

Taxa are found growing on the ground or associated with rotten wood, and are mostly ectomycorrhizal with woody plants.[1]

Genera

The genera Pisolithus and Scleroderma are known to be ectomycorrhizal, while Calostoma is suspected to be.[5][6]

Taxonomy

Phylogenetic analysis places the Sclerodermataceae in the bolete clade.[7][8] Older analysis suggests that the Sclerodermataceae (including the genera Scleroderma and Veligaster), the Pisolithaceae (Pisolithus), the Astraeaceae (Astraeus), Calostomataceae (Calostoma), and the new families Gyroporaceae (Gyroporus) and Boletinellaceae (Boletinellus and Phlebopus), should form a new suborder, the Sclerodermatineae.[9]

Gallery

References

  1. ^ a b c Fungal families of the world. Wallingford: CABI. 2007. ISBN 0-85199-827-5. 
  2. ^ Zeller SM. (1949). Keys to the orders, families, and genera of the gasteromycetes. Mycologia 41(1): 36-58.
  3. ^ Miller, Hope Ridings; Miller, Orson K. (1988). Gasteromycetes: morphological and developmental features, with keys to the orders, families, and genera. Eureka, Calif: Mad River Press. ISBN 0-916422-74-7. 
  4. ^ Laessoe T, Jalink LM. (2004). Chlorogaster dipterocarpi - A new peristomate gasteroid taxon of the Sclerodermataceae. Persoonia 18(3): 421-428.
  5. ^ Louzan R, Wilson AW, Binder M, Hibbett DS.. "Phylogenetic placement of Diplocystis wrightii in the Sclerodermatineae (Boletales) based on nuclear ribosomal large subunit DNA sequences". Mycoscience 48 (1): 66–9. doi:10.1007/s10267-006-0325-5. 
  6. ^ Binder M, Hibbett DS (2006). "Molecular systematics and biological diversification of Boletales". Mycologia 98 (6): 971–81. doi:10.3852/mycologia.98.6.971. PMID 17486973. 
  7. ^ Binder M, Hibbett DS, Larsson K-H, Larsson E, Langer E, Langer G. (2005). The phylogenetic distribution of resupinate forms across the major clades of mushroom-forming fungi (Homobasidiomycetes). Systematics and Biodiversity 3(2): 113–157
  8. ^ Larsson KH, Larsson E, Kõljalg U (September 2004). "High phylogenetic diversity among corticioid homobasidiomycetes". Mycological Research 108 (Pt 9): 983–1002. doi:10.1017/S0953756204000851. PMID 15506012. 
  9. ^ Binder M, Bresinsky A. (2002). Derivation of a polymorphic lineage of Gasteromycetes from boletoid ancestors. Mycologia 94(1): 85-98.

External links