Search Results - Agaricales

The order Agaricales, also known as gilled mushrooms (for their distinctive gills), or euagarics, contains some of the most familiar types of mushrooms. The order has about 4,000 identified species, or one quarter of all known Agaricomycetes. They range from the ubiquitous common mushroom to the deadly destroying angel and the hallucinogenic fly agaric to the bioluminescent jack-o-lantern mushroom.

Some notable fungi with gill-like structures, such as chanterelles, have long been recognized as being substantially different from usual Agaricales. Interestingly, molecular studies are showing more groups of agarics as being more divergent than previously thought, such as the genera Russula and Lactarius belonging to a separate order Russulales, and other gilled fungi, including such species as Paxillus involutus and Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca showing a closer affinity with Boletes in the order Boletales.

Also, some other quite distinctive fungi, the puffballs, and some clavaroid fungi, e.g. Typhula, and the Beefsteak fungus have been recently been shown to lie within the Agaricales.