Family (Fungi): Cantharellaceae

The Cantharellaceae are a family of fungi in the order Cantharellales. The family contains the chanterelles and related species, a group of fungi that superficially resemble agarics (gilled mushrooms) but have smooth, wrinkled, or gill-like hymenophores (spore-bearing undersurfaces). Species in the family are ectomycorrhizal, forming a mutually beneficial relationship with the roots of trees and other plants. Many of the Cantharellaceae, including the chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius), the Pacific golden chanterelle (Cantharellus formosus), the horn of plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides), and the trumpet chanterelle (Craterellus tubaeformis), are not only edible, but are collected and marketed internationally on a commercial scale.

Description

Fruit bodies of most species in the family are mushroom-like or trumpet-like, with spore-bearing surfaces that are smooth, wrinkled, veined, or gill-like and that are typically decurrent (running down the upper stem). The consistency is fleshy, the hyphal system being monomitic (consisting of generative hyphae only). The basidia are comparatively large and often have more than the standard 4 sterigmata. Spores are smooth and white to yellowish or pinkish in deposit.

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