Types of fungi

Club fungi

Basidiomaycota This group contains about 25,000 species of mushrooms, bracket fungi, puffballs, rusts, coral fungi, and smuts. These produce spores in structures called basidia that look like clubs. The structure of an average mushroom is pictured here. As you can see, a mushroom has a stalk or stipe with a structure called a ring which looks something like a very short skirt. On the top is an umbrella-like cap. The spores are produced under the cap in structures that vary according to the species of mushroom - gills, pores, or teeth. What you can't see above ground is the mycelium or the main body of the fungus which is growing in the soil or other substrate

Chytrids

Chytridmycota Chytrids are the smallest and simplest of the groups of fungi. They emerged soon after the Precambrian period and the oldest fossil of fungi discovered thus far are chytrid-like organisms found in northern Russia. Chytrids are not merely first because of the age of their fossils, however. Studies of the evolutionary relationships between chytrids and other fungi indicate that they are genetically related to all fungi. So what do chytrids tell us about the origin of fungi? First of all, chytrids are mostly aquatic, and not terrestrial. This means that fungi probably got their start in the water, as did plants and vertebrates. This means that chytrids may give scientists a good idea of just what the early ancestors of today's fungi were like. Chytrids are also the most unique among fungi because they have a motile stage. This means that they can move on their own with a whiplike flagella. No other fungi have f lagella, which suggests that the other fungi lost this trait at some point in their evolutionary history. This is also consistent with what we know about the closest relatives to the fungi, which also have flagella. Unfortunately, some chytrids prey on certain frog species. Ecologists world wide are concerned that chytrids are contributing to the extinction of some amphibian species.

Sac fungi

This group contains over 30,000 species of fungi including yeast, morels, truffles, and some fungi that cause plant diseases such as Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, apple scab, and ergot. Sac fungi are so named because they produce their spores in a sack called an ascus.

Threadlike fungi

Zygomycota With just under 1,000 species, this group of fungi is the smallest. Molds, including most common bread molds, such as Rhizopus nigricans pictured here, produce spores in spore cases called sporangia on their threadlike fuzzy hyphae. Mold is a multicellular fungus that grows in the form of filaments called hyphae which can appear fuzzy in some species. The black bread mold is reproducing in the picture below right. Two hyphae in the bread mold have joined together to undergo sexual reproduction. The round object between the hyphae will eventually produce spores.