Hydnangiaceae

The Hydnangiaceae are a family of fungi in the Agaricales order of mushrooms. Widespread in temperate and tropical regions throughout the world, the family contains about 30 species in four genera.^[1] Species in the Hydnangiaceae form ectomycorrhizal relationships with various species of trees in both coniferous and deciduous forests.^[2]

Description

They may have fruiting bodies with stems and caps (pileate-stipiate), or gasteroid (with internal spore production, like puffballs). When pileate, the cap is glabrous to scaly, sometimes striate, typically orange-brown or violet in color; the gills are widely spaced, thick, and waxy. In gasteroid forms, fruit body shape is irregular, with thin walls. Also, the peridium (the outer layer of the spore-bearing organ) is sometimes short-lasting (evanescent). Columella (the central, sterile part of the sporangium) may be absent or present, the hymenia are not gelatinized, and are formed in locules. Basidia are club-shaped (clavate), with two or four sterigmata, sometimes with accompanying cheilocystidia (cystidia on the edges of gills). Taxa have a widespread distribution in both temperate and tropical zones.^[3]

Genera

• Hydnangium has hypogeal fruit bodies like truffles, with no stipe, nor a columella.^[4]
• Laccaria has 'typical' mushroom-shaped (pileate-stipiate) fruit bodies.
• Maccagnia is a poorly known gasteroid genus containing a single species from Italy.^[5]
• Podohydnangium has subepigeal fruit bodies, with partially exposed gleba at the base and a stipe columnella.^[6]

See also

• List of Agaricales families

References