BASIDIOMYCOTA


The Basidiomycota is the second largest division of the Kingdom Fungi, after Ascomycota. It is divided into three major lineages, classified as the classes Basidiomycetes (that includes mushrooms, puffballs, stinkhorns, bracket fungi, other polypores, jelly fungi, boletes, chanterelles, and earth stars), Urediniomycetes (the rust), and Ustilaginomycetes (the smuts). The class Basidiomycetes (called “Hed” in Thai) are valuable biological resources, abundant in forest ecosystems, and they take on a variety of ecological roles from decomposers to symbionts. The Basidiomycetes collected in the forests constitute an important resource in Thai in terms of consumption and sale especially for the life of the rural population. They are a rich source of nutritional and functional value because of their medicinal properties, and they are important contributors to the ecosystem as the major degraders of different components in wood, including lignin. The most diagnostic feature of the group includes those members that produce their basidia and basidiospores on or in a basidiocarp. Studies critically examining morphological and molecular characterization have revealed several new genera, new species, and new records in Thailand such as species of genus Agaricus, Amanita, Auricularia, Lactarius, Lentinus, Macrolepiota, Phallus, and Russula (Karunarathna et al. 2011, Bandara et al. 2015, Kakumyan 2015, Chen et al. 2015, Wisitrassameewong et al. 2015, Yomyart et al. 2016, Suwannarach et al. 2020, Sommai et al. 2021, Liu et al. 2022).