Cyphelloid fungi

History

The genus Cyphella was original described by Fries in 1822. Subsequent authors gradually added over 300 species to the genus. By the close of the nineteenth century, however, it was already clear that Cyphella contained a miscellany of species — some, for example, having hyaline spores, whilst others had brown spores. Segregate genera were accordingly proposed to accommodate cyphelloid fungi that were not closely related to the type, and this process continued throughout the twentieth century. The group was covered in a monograph by William Bridge Cooke in 1961, with additional papers by Donk, Reid, and Agerer. As a result of these critical revisions, only one species is still accepted in Cyphella, namely the type Cyphella digitalis.

The family name Cyphellaceae was used to keep most (but not all) of these segregate genera together. It became equally clear, however, that it too was heterogeneous, Donk noting that it was "nothing but a handy bin from which part of the contents has already been taken out and disposed of by scattering it over various groups."

DNA sequencing confirms this diversity, showing that cyphelloid fungi have independently evolved at least eight times within the Basidiomycota. Genera are currently placed in the Cyphellaceae (in a restricted sense), Inocybaceae, Marasmiaceae, Niaceae, and Tricholomataceae. It had previously been suggested that most cyphelloid fungi were related to gilled agarics (mushrooms and toadstools) and they have sometimes been referred to as "reduced agarics". DNA sequencing shows that this is indeed true for many of the genera sampled, almost all being placed within the order Agaricales.