BOTANICAL TERMS and EXPLANATIONS
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Agaric - A mushroom with gills on the underside of its cap
Basidium - The club-shaped cell where spores are produced by mushrooms of the subdivision Ascomycotina. Plural is Asci.
Bolete - A fleshy mushroom of the subdivision Basidiomycotina which has a tubelike layer on the undersurface of its cap rather than gills and appears as a many-holed surface.
Bruising - Fungi that change colors when handled, even carefully.
Button - The immature stage of a mushroom before its cap opens.
Cap - The top or head of a mushroom.
Capillitium - Small threads that are mixed with the spores and spore cases of some puffbals and slime molds.
Cluster - A group of mushrooms rising together from nearly the same spot, usually touching or attached at the base.
Cup - The saclike tissue at the stalk base of some mushrooms when the veil ruptures, looking like an egg that the mushroom is growing from.
Cuticle - The surface cell layer of a mushroom.
Depressed - Sunken.
Descending - Running down the stalk, usually in reference to gills.
Disc - The central portion of the cap.
Evanescent - Disappearing quickly.
Fairy ring - A circle or portion of a circle of gilled mushrooms or puffballs arising from a mycelium that expands outward from a central point.
Flesh - The interior tissue of a mushroom.
Free - Unattached to the stalk, usually in reference to the gills.
Fruiting body - The reproductive portion of a fungus which usually appears above ground.
Fungus - An organism that lacks chlorophyll and posseses spores. Originally considered a part of the plant kingdom.
Gill - One of the fleshy plates that radiate from the stem on the underside of the cap of many mushrooms.
Hymenium - The spore-bearing surface.
Hypha - One of the filament-like threads that make up the body of a fungus.
Incurved - Rolled or bent inward.
Lateral - Attached at the edge, usually in reference to stalks that are attached this way to caps.
Margin - The outer edge of a mushroom cap.
Mushroom - The fruiting body of a fungus.
Mycelium - The vegetative portion of a fungus.
Mycology - The study of fungi.
Mycorrhiza - A symbiotic association between a fungus and the root-ends of rooted plants.
Parasitic - Living in or on another animal or plant and deriving food from it.
Partial veil - A tissue that covers and protects the immature gills or tubes of some mushrooms.
Pore - The opening or end of the tube in boletes and polypores where spores leave the mushroom.
Rhizomorph - A cordlike strand of mycelium at the base of a mushroom.
Ring - The remnants left by a partial veil after it has ruptured, remaining on the stalk.
Ring zone - The remnants left on a stalk by a thin or cobwebby partial veil after it has ruptured.
Saprophyte - An organism that takes nourishment from dead organic matter.
Shelf-like - Without a stalk, generally growing from woody surfaces.
Solid - Filled with dense flesh.
Spore - The reproductive unit in a fungus.
Stipe - The stem of a mushroom.
Symbiont - An organism that lives in a mutally beneficial relationship, or symbiosis with another organism.
Toadstool - A popular, but undefined term for a mushroom. May also imply a poisonous mushroom.
Tube - A hollow cylinder that contains the basidia where spores are produced in boletes and polypores.
Universal veil - A tissue that encloses the entire immature stage of some mushrooms.
Veil - A tissue that covers and protects the immature stage of some some mushrooms. Referred to as a universal veil when it encloses the entire immature mushroom, and a partial veil when it covers only the gills or tubes.
Volva - A saclike cup or tissue surrounding the stalk base, left after the universal veil has ruptured.
Zoned - Having distinct bands.
Abbreviations:
" - Inches
' - Feet