CLASS MUCOROMYCETES

• One of the groups of fungi defined by the production of asexual aplanospores, fusion of gametangia to produce zygospores and walls of chitin and chitosan; asexual development seems to be from many-spored sporangia, through sporangia with a much-reduced number of spores, to one-spored sporangiola which function as conidia.

• ORDER MUCORALES
  • Filamentous; aplanospores produced in globose, multinucleate sporangia, narrow cylindrical sac-like merosporangia, in few-spored sporangiola or singly as conidia; zygospores often thick-walled, black and warty resting spores; large terminal chlamydospores common in mycorrhizal forms. Saprophytic “pin molds” but also including a number of biotrophic parasites of other Mucorales and the fungi of vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhiza.
  • Mucor, Rhizopus, Pilobolus, Chaetocladium, Choanephora, Phycomyces, Syncephalestrum, Thamnidium.

• ORDER ENDOGONIALES
  • Filamentous; coenocytic, saprobic and mycorrhizal; zygospores produced in underground sporocarp.
  • Densospora, Endogone, Pteridiospora, Sclerogone, Youngiomyces.

CLASS MORTIERELLOMYCETES

• ORDER MORTIERELLALES
  • Mycelia thin, branched; often with the odor of garlic. Hyphae with scattered crosswalls. Sporangia have one to many spores and a small columella.
  • Mortierella, Dissiphora, Modicella.