Fungi

History of the study of Australian Fungi

Australian National Botanic Gardens — The history of the study of fungi in Australia and the people involved. What follows is a highly abbreviated account of the progress in the study of Australian (macro)fungi in the years since European settlement in 1788. This account highlights ...More…

Aboriginal use of fungi

Australian National Botanic Gardens — An excellent source of information about this topic is the chapter by Arpad Kalotas in Fungi of Australia, Volume 1B and virtually all the material in this section is taken from there. For thousands of years Aboriginal fungal lore and knowledge ...More…

Truffle-like fungi - basidiomycetes

Australian National Botanic Gardens — The fruiting bodies of the basidiomycete truffle-like fungi are varied in form, sometimes stalked but mostly stalk-less and more-or-less spherical in shape . Internally the fruiting bodies are chambered, with the chambers of some species easy to ...More…

Jelly fungi & Wood-ears

Australian National Botanic Gardens — The irregularly shaped jelly fungi (such as the species of Tremella) have the basidia in the convoluted surfaces of the fruiting bodies. The basidia of the jelly fungi are septate along their long axes and have long, often weakly sinuous ...More…

Corticioid, stereoid and coral fungi

Australian National Botanic Gardens — A funnel-shaped stereoid fungus such as Cymatoderma elegans var. lamellatum has the basidia on the underside of the sloping funnel area. Cymatoderma elegans var. lamellatum fungi have basidia lining the undersides of the fruiting bodies. The ...More…

Truffle-like fungi - ascomycetes

Australian National Botanic Gardens — In the ascomycete truffle-like fungi the asci may be spread throughout the interior of the fruiting body, embedded in firm tissue or be lined up along the walls of internal chambers. This unidentified species of Tuber , collected in the ...More…

The cup fungi - and relatives

Australian National Botanic Gardens — The most commonly seen larger ascomycete fruiting bodies are the ones known as the If you examined a cross-section of an apothecium under a microscope, you'd find the asci arranged vertically and making up much of the apothecium's upper surface, . ...More…

Truffle-like fungi in Australia

Australian National Botanic Gardens — Truffle-like fungi in Australia - one of several illustrated pages introducing Australian fungi. Terminology - truffle, truffle-like, false-truffle, hypogeous, sequestrate How many species are in Australia - and where do you find them? The ...More…

Flask fungi

Australian National Botanic Gardens — These fungi produce their spores in tiny, generally globose, chambers (called perithecia) which are mostly under a couple of millimetres in diameter - often no more than a millimetre. At first, it might seem strange to include these fungi because ...More…

Types of fungal fruiting bodies - cup fungi

Australian National Botanic Gardens — There are also what might best be described as "compound" cup fungi, which look like a number of cups stuck together. Two examples are the genera Cyttaria, where each "dimple" in the "golfball" can be thought of as a small ...More…

Stereoid & paint (skin) fungi

Australian National Botanic Gardens — However, the polypores have pores on the underside but the stereoid fungi have smooth, rather than pored, undersides. Remember that the pores in some of the polypores are very small (10 or more per millimetre). So to tell if you have a polypore ...More…

Coral and jelly fungi

Australian National Botanic Gardens — , usually found on soil but sometimes on rotting wood, may be simple fleshy clubs or intricately branched coral-like forms in various colours (e.g. white, yellow, brown, orange, purple). Generally they are no more than a few centimetres in height ...More…