They may have fruit bodies with stipes and caps (pileate-stipiate), or gasteroid (with internal spore production, like puffballs). When pileate, the cap is smooth to scaly, sometimes striate, typically orange-brown or violet in color. The gills are widely spaced, thick, and waxy. In gasteroid forms, fruit body shape is irregular, with thin walls. Also, the peridium (the outer layer of the spore-bearing organ) is sometimes short-lasting (evanescent). Columella (the central, sterile part of the sporangium) may be absent or present, the hymenia are not gelatinized, and are formed in locules. Basidia are club-shaped (clavate), with two or four sterigmata, sometimes with accompanying cheilocystidia (cystidia on the edges of gills).
Distribution and habitat
Hydnangiaceae taxa have a widespread distribution in both temperate and tropical zones.[3]
^Cannon PF, Kirk PM (2007). Fungal Families of the World. Wallingford, UK: CAB International. p. 164. ISBN978-0-85199-827-5.
^Mueller GM. (1997). "Distribution and species composition of Laccaria (Agaricales) in tropical and subtropical America". Revista de Biología Tropical. 44: 131–135.
^Mueller GM. "Systematics of Laccaria (Agaricales) in the Continental United States and Canada, with discussions on extralimital taxa and descriptions of extant types". Fieldiana: Botany. New Series. 30: 1–158.
