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| The families of mushrooms and toadstools represented in Britain and Ireland |
~Meruliaceae
Morphology. The fruit-bodies producing basidia and basidiospores; persistent; flattened and more or less appressed to the substrate or encrusting, with the hymenium on the outside; brightly pigmented, or not brightly pigmented; pale or brown, sometimes blue (e.g., Terana caerulea). The hymenium porose, or with pegs or spinose, or irregularly folded, ridged or wrinkled. The hymenial layer not readily separable from the supporting flesh. The hymenium thickening. Cystidia present; leptocystidia. The basidia ‘unmodified’; not of the ceratobasidialean type (q.v.). The basidiospores hyaline; smooth; inamyloid.
The hyphae without clamp connections. The hyphal walls lamellate, with a thin, electron-dense outer layer and a relatively thick, electron-transparent inner layer. The hyphae monomitic.
Ecology. Saprophytic. The fruit-bodies on dead wood, or on living wood (?); on trunks and branches of living trees, on dead trees and fallen logs (and on bark).
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 31 species in Britain; Candelabrochaete, Ceraceomyces, Erythricium, Hyphodermella, Odonticium, Phanerochaete, Phlebiopsis, Terana.
World representation. 63 species (?). “Widespread”.
Classification. Basidiomycota; Basidiomycetes; Agaricomycetidae; Polyporales.
Illustrations. • Terana caerulea (Cobalt crust, on rose stem): A. Myers. • Phanerochaete filamentosa and Terana caerulea: T. Læssøe. PHANEROCHAETACEAE. 1, Phanerochaete filamentosa. 2, Terana caerulea. Photos from www.mycokey.com (Thomas Læssøe).
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’.
