''Crepidotus'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

in the family Crepidotaceae. Species of ''Crepidotus'' all have small, convex to fan-shaped

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

caps and grow on wood or plant debris. The genus has been studied extensively, and

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

s of the North American, European, and Neotropical species have been published.

Taxonomy

Elias Magnus Fries Elias Magnus Fries (15 August 1794 – 8 February 1878) was a Swedish mycologist and botanist. He is sometimes called the Mycology, "Linnaeus of Mycology". In his works he described and assigned botanical names to hundreds of fungus and li ...

first

circumscribed In geometry, a circumscribed circle for a set of points is a circle passing through each of them. Such a circle is said to ''circumscribe'' the points or a polygon formed from them; such a polygon is said to be ''inscribed'' in the circle. * Circum ...

''Crepidotus'' in 1821 as a tribe in the genus ''Agaricus'', although he later (1836–1838) revised his concept. In 1857, Staude elevated Tribus ''Crepidotus'' to a genus, with ''Agaricus mollis'' (Schaeff) as the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

. Early descriptions of the genus contained between six and forty-six species, depending on the author. In 1947, Rolf Singer wrote a monograph about the genus, and unlike prior treatments, used microscopic characters to help delineate infrageneric (i.e., below genus-level classification) relationships. Based on his revisions, the genus included 30 species. Soon after, Pilát (1950) extended Singer's monograph, including additional species to bring the total species to 75. However, many of his ''Crepidotus''

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

would later be transferred to other genera. Currently, over 320 species are accepted.

Phylogeny

Modern

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

analysis using sequencing data from the 28S

rRNA Ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) is a type of non-coding RNA which is the primary component of ribosomes, essential to all cells. rRNA is a ribozyme which carries out protein synthesis in ribosomes. Ribosomal RNA is transcribed from ribosomal ...

gene region shows that ''Crepidotus'' is

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

, and that Singer's original concept for the genus may be too narrowly defined. This research showed that a natural evolutionary lineage results if some ''Pleurotellus'' species and several taxa formerly aligned with ''Melanomphalia'' are included in the generic description.

Species

Historically, many species of the genus ''Crepidotus'' have been described due to differences in single morphological character traits. Phylogenetic analysis is showing that these morphological differences are often due to phenotypic plasticity—species may adapt to different environments by assuming variations in growth forms. Recent taxonomic revisions have shown that several species formerly considered unique are

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...

. Further study is required to more accurately delineate infrageneric relationships in this taxa.

Selected species

Etymology

''Crepidotus'' means 'cracked ear' in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Description

Members of this genus are small, convex to fan-shaped, and

. Species have cheilocystidia Spore prints are yellow-brown to brown. All species of ''Crepidotus'' are known to be secondary decomposers of plant matter; most are

saprobic Saprotrophic nutrition or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of decayed (dead or waste) organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi ...

on wood. Little is known about the edibility of various species; the usually small and insubstantial specimens discourage mycophagy.

Distribution

''Crepidotus'' species are cosmopolitan in distribution, and are well-documented from the northern

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

and South American regions.Senn-Irlet B, and de Meijer AAR. (1998). The genus ''Crepidotus'' from the state of Paraná, Brazil. ''Mycotaxon'' 66: 165-199.

Gallery

White Mushroom, Crepidotus applanatus (556317385).jpg, '' C. applanatus'' Crepidotus calolepis 313277.jpg, '' C. calolepis'' Crepidotus caspari- Björn Bråvander01.jpg, '' C. caspari'' Crepidotus spec. - Lindsey 2.jpg, '' C. cesatii'' Crepidotus cinnabarinus Peck 551094.jpg, '' C. cinnabarinus'' Crepidotus crocophyllus 58074986.jpg, '' C. crocophyllus'' Crepidotus epibryus (Cortinariaceae), Culemborg, the Netherlands.jpg, '' C. epibryus'' Crepidotus fimbriatus, Hartelholz, Múnich, Alemania, 2020-11-28, DD 333-378 FS.jpg, '' C. fimbriatus'' Crepidotus luteolus a1 (1).JPG, '' C. luteolus'' Crepidotus malachius - Guelph, Ontario 2020-07-26 (02).jpg, '' C. malachius'' Crepidotus mollis 15063103.jpg, '' C. mollis'' Crepidotus novae-zelandiae-Jerry Cooper IWS specimen.png, '' C. novae-zelandiae'' Crepidotus nyssicola (Murrill) Singer 950845.jpg, '' C. nyssicola'' Crepidotus spec. Praecipuus 1.jpg, '' C. praecipuus'' Crepidotus roseus Singer 579861.jpg, '' C. roseus'' Crepidotus subverrucisporus Pilát 3380797325.jpg, '' C. subverrucisporus'' Crepidotus spec. - Lindsey 4b.jpg, '' C. variabilis'' Crepidotus versutus.JPG, '' C. versutus''

References

External links

*
Crepidotus
' at

Index Fungorum ''Index Fungorum'' is an international project to index all formal names (scientific names) in the fungus kingdom. As of 2015, the project is based at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, one of three partners along with Landcare Research and th ...

{{Authority control Crepidotaceae Taxa named by Elias Magnus Fries