edgepedia

Fungi and mycology

727 articles

Pezizaceae

Pezizaceae (cup fungus family), formerly including Terfeziaceae, is a family of Pezizales ascomycetes containing Peziza and desert truffles like Terfezia and Tirmania; asci blue in iodine, truffle forms evolved independently at least three times.

Pezizales

Pezizales (Tuberales, synonym) is a fungal order in class Pezizomycetes, Ascomycota, holding cup fungi, morels, Helvella, Peziza, and truffles, with operculate asci, about 23 families and 2000 species.

Phallaceae

Phallaceae, the stinkhorn family (Corda, 1842), are gasteroid Basidiomycota fungi in Phallales whose foul-smelling gleba attracts insects for spore dispersal; fruit bodies emerge from eggs within minutes and include edible Phallus species.

Phallales

Phallales is an order of fungi in the class Agaricomycetes whose best-known members are the stinkhorns, foul-smelling fungi that rely on insects rather than wind to disperse their spores.

Phalloidin

Phalloidin is a bicyclic heptapeptide toxin from the death cap mushroom Amanita phalloides that stabilizes actin filaments, and its fluorescent forms are the gold standard probe for staining fixed cells.

Phallus impudicus

Phallus impudicus, the common stinkhorn, is a basidiomycete fungus (Phallales, Phallaceae) described by Linnaeus in 1753, whose fetid gleba attracts spore-dispersing flies; egg stage considered edible.

Phallus indusiatus

Phallus indusiatus, the bridal veil stinkhorn or veiled lady (synonym Dictyophora indusiata), is a tropical Phallaceae fungus with a lacy white indusium, insect-dispersed spores, edible and used in Chinese medicine since 618 AD; a species complex once thought circum-tropical.

Phanerochaete

Phanerochaete, established by Petter Karsten in 1889, is a genus of crust-like fungi that decompose dead wood; its species P. chrysosporium was the first basidiomycete to have its genome published.

Phellinus

Phellinus (sanghuang, 桑黃) is a genus of about 220 perennial, shelf-shaped wood-decay fungi in Hymenochaetaceae, used for 2,000 years in East Asian medicine; over 300 bioactive compounds, mainly polysaccharides and hispidin-derived polyphenols, have been reported.

Phialophora

Phialophora (Medlar 1915) is a genus of anamorphic ascomycete fungi in Chaetothyriales, Herpotrichiellaceae, defined by collarette-bearing phialides; type species P. verrucosa causes chromoblastomycosis.

Pholiota

Pholiota (Fr.) P. Kumm., 1871, a genus of about 150-160 wood-rotting Strophariaceae mushrooms with scaly or slimy yellow-brown caps and brown spores; includes edible P. nameko and P. adiposa.

Phoma

Phoma is a genus of fungi in the family Didymellaceae, order Pleosporales, found in soil and on plants; its taxonomy was long confused, and Phoma macrostoma is used as a bioherbicide.

Phomopsis

Phomopsis (Sacc.) Bubák, asexual-morph genus of Diaporthaceae fungi, now a rejected synonym of Diaporthe; alpha and beta conidia in pycnidia; causes citrus melanose, soybean blight, grapevine cane spot, rare human mycosis.

Phycomyces

Phycomyces is a genus of filamentous zygomycete fungi in the order Mucorales, saprophytes of humid environments worldwide, best known for the laboratory species Phycomyces blakesleeanus and its sensitive responses to light, gravity, and nearby objects.

Phyllosticta

Phyllosticta (formerly Guignardia for the sexual morph) is a genus of Dothideomycete fungi in Phyllostictaceae, ranging from endophytes like P. capitalensis to major crop pathogens causing citrus black spot (P. citricarpa) and grapevine black rot (P. ampelicida).

Physoderma

Physoderma is a genus of over 100 fungal plant parasites in the phylum Blastocladiomycota, whose species live inside host tissues; P. maydis causes brown spot and stalk rot of maize.

Pichia

Pichia is a yeast genus established by Hansen in 1904, now limited to the Pichia membranifaciens clade after reclassification of former species into Komagataella, Ogataea, and other genera.

Pichia kluyveri

Pichia kluyveri (syn. Pichia belgica, Hansenula kluyveri) is a glucose-only, low-ethanol non-Saccharomyces yeast used as a flavor starter culture in low-alcohol beer, wine, cocoa, and coffee fermentation; GRAS strain DSM 33235.

Pilobolus

Pilobolus (dung cannon, hat-thrower fungus) is a genus of mucoromycotan fungi, family Pilobolaceae, growing obligately on herbivore dung and shooting adhesive sporangia up to 2.5 m toward light; also disperses lungworm larvae.

Pixie-cup lichens

Pixie-cup lichens are species of the lichen genus Cladonia whose upright stalks widen at the top into goblet- or funnel-shaped cups, common on soil, rocks, walls, and decaying wood.

Pleurotaceae

Pleurotaceae (Kühner 1980) is a family of gilled Agaricales fungi restricted to Pleurotus (oyster mushrooms) and Hohenbuehelia; white-rot wood decayers, nematode-trapping, with Pleurotus about 25% of global cultivated mushroom production.

Pleurotus

Pleurotus, the oyster mushroom genus (Pleurotaceae, Agaricales), includes over 40 shell-capped, white-rot species such as P. ostreatus; second most cultivated edible mushroom, grown on lignocellulosic waste and used in mycoremediation.

Pleurotus eryngii

Pleurotus eryngii, the king oyster mushroom (杏鲍菇 in Chinese commerce), is an edible Apiaceae-root-associated Pleurotaceae fungus from Morocco to China, head of a species complex, and a major cultivated mushroom.

Pleurotus ostreatus

Pleurotus ostreatus, the oyster mushroom, a white-rot basidiomycete and second most cultivated edible mushroom after Agaricus bisporus; 9.3 Mt produced in 2021, lignin degraded by versatile peroxidases, MnPs and laccases, grown on pasteurized straw at 10-18 C.

Pluteaceae

Pluteaceae, a family of Agaricales fungi, now comprises the genera Pluteus (about 300 species, type P. cervinus) and Volvopluteus; Volvariella has been moved to Volvariellaceae.

Pluteus

Pluteus (deer mushrooms) is a genus of wood-decomposing agaric fungi in Pluteaceae, Agaricales, with free gills, pink spore print, no volva, sections Pluteus, Hispidoderma, Celluloderma, and a few psilocybin species such as P. salicinus.

Pluteus cervinus

Pluteus cervinus, the deer mushroom or deer shield (synonym Pluteus atricapillus), is a widespread wood-rotting Pluteaceae mushroom with a brown cap, free pink-gilled lamellae, and horned cystidia; it is the type species of Pluteus and heads a cryptic species complex.

Pneumocystis

Pneumocystis, genus of atypical ascomycete lung fungi; human species Pneumocystis jirovecii (formerly P. carinii) causes PCP pneumonia in immunosuppressed hosts; treated and prevented with TMP-SMX.

Pneumocystis jirovecii

Pneumocystis jirovecii (formerly P. carinii) is a human lung fungus causing Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP/PJP) in immunocompromised people, mainly those with HIV and CD4 counts below 200 cells/mm3; diagnosed by microscopy, PCR, and beta-D-glucan.

Podospora

Podospora (syn. Triangularia anserina) is a genus of coprophilous ascomycete fungi in the Sordariales, family Podosporaceae, found on soil and herbivore dung; its model species Podospora anserina is central to aging, prion, and meiotic drive research.