Agaric
fungal fruiting body
An agaric () is a type of fungal fruiting body characterized by the presence of a pileus (cap) that is clearly differentiated from the stipe (stalk), with lamellae (gills) on the underside of the pileus. It is a type of mushroom (or toadstool), the diverse group of agarics being lumped together as gilled mushrooms. "Agaric" can also refer more generally to any basidiomycete species characterized by an agaric-type fruiting body.
Etymology
Originally, agaric meant 'tree-fungus' (after Latin agaricum); however, that changed with the Linnaean interpretation in 1753 when Linnaeus used the generic name Agaricus for gilled mushrooms.
Taxonomy
Most species of agarics belong to the order Agaricales in the subphylum Agaricomycotina. The exceptions, where agarics have evolved independently, feature largely in the orders Russulales, Boletales, Hymenochaetales, and several other groups of basidiomycetes. Old systems of classification placed all agarics in the Agaricales and some (mostly older) sources use "agarics" as the colloquial collective noun for the Agaricales. Contemporary sources now tend to use the term euagarics to refer to all agaric members of the Agaricales. "Agaric" is also sometimes used as a common name for members of the genus Agaricus, as well as for members of other genera; for example, Amanita muscaria is known by its common name "fly agaric". The genus Agaricus was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, and back then it contained all agarics.
The public source identifies “Agaric” as fungal fruiting body. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Agaric, fungal and fruiting.
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This entry incorporates text from “Agaric” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.