Heterobasidiomycetes

Heterobasidiomycetes found in a nature reserve near Comboyne, New South Wales, Australia

Heterobasidiomycetes, including jelly fungi, smuts and rusts, are basidiomycetes with septate basidia. This contrasts them to homobasidiomycetes (alternatively called holobasidiomycetes), including most mushrooms and other Agaricomycetes, which have aseptate basidia. The division of all basidiomycetes between these two groups has been influential in fungal taxonomy,[1] and is still used informally, but it is no longer the basis of formal classification. In modern taxonomy[2] homobasidiomycetes roughly correspond to the monophyletic class Agaricomycetes, whereas heterobasidiomycetes are paraphyletic and as such correspond to various taxa from different taxonomic ranks, including the Basidiomycota other than Agaricomycetes and a few basal groups within Agaricomycetes.

  1. ^ Swann EC; Taylor JW (1993). "Higher Taxa of Basidiomycetes: An 18S rRNA Gene Perspective". Mycologia. 85 (6): 923–936. doi:10.2307/3760675. JSTOR 3760675.
  2. ^ Hibbett DS; et al. (2007). "A higher-level phylogenetic classification of the Fungi". Mycological Research. 111 (5): 509–547. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.626.9582. doi:10.1016/j.mycres.2007.03.004. PMID 17572334. S2CID 4686378.