Auriculariaceae
family of fungi
The Auriculariaceae are a family of fungi in the order Auriculariales. Species within the family were formerly referred to the "heterobasidiomycetes" or "jelly fungi", since many have gelatinous basidiocarps (fruit bodies) that produce spores on septate basidia. Around 100 species are known worldwide. All are believed to be saprotrophic, most growing on dead wood. Fruit bodies of several Auricularia species are cultivated for food on a commercial scale, especially in China.
Taxonomy
History
The family was established in 1897 by German mycologist Gustav Lindau to accommodate species of fungi having "gymnocarpous" basidiocarps (with the hymenium exposed) and "auricularioid" basidia (more or less cylindrical basidia with lateral septa). It included not only the genus Auricularia, but also Platygloea, Jola, Saccoblastia, and Stypinella (= Helicobasidium). In 1922, British mycologist Carleton Rea recognized the family as containing the genera Auricularia, Eocronartium, Helicobasidium, Platygloea, and Stilbum. Both Lindau and Rea placed the family within the Auriculariales, but some subsequent authors placed it within the Tremellales.
A radical revision was undertaken in 1984, when American mycologist Robert Joseph Bandoni used transmission electron microscopy to investigate the ultrastructure of the septal pore apparatus in the Auriculariales.
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This entry incorporates text from “Auriculariaceae” 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.