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Cantharellales Gallery

The order Cantharellales includes the popular chanterelle mushrooms (Cantharellaceae), with their familiar funnel shapes and fruit-scented flesh; many small club-shaped fungi (Claviaraceae) plus some more complex branched clubs (Clavulinaceae) - the latter often mistaken for Ramariaceae, the true coral fungi - and finally the Hedgehog Fungi (Hydnaceae).

Also in this section we have included the Lentinellaceae, from the order Hericiales.

Many of the species in this order are inedible or not worth picking for food; however, it does contain a high proportion of good edible mushrooms as well as some fascinatingly intricate structures.

Larger pictures, identification guides and a wealth of information on these and hundreds of other species are contained on the First-Nature CD-ROM Guide to Fungi.

Included in this order are trumpet-shaped Chanterelle mushrooms; various club-shaped fungi (these are commonly referred to as Fairy Clubs) some of which look like rudimentary coral fungi; and the cap-and-stem Hedgehog Fungi or Tooth Fungi.
With their fleshy, funnel-shaped fruit bodies, chanterelles are different from the funnel-shaped agarics in that the underside of the caps, where the spores develop, do not have true gills. The most commonly occurring fungi in this family have ridged undersides. Chanterelles grow on soil or on leaf litter, usually recurring in the same place for many years.

Cantharellus tubaeformis
Cantharellus
tubaeformis
Most of the Fairy Club fungi grow of dead wood and are very small. The whole of the surface of these fungi is spore bearing.

Other fungi in this order - the cauliflower Fungus, Sparrasis crispa, for example - are massive and parasitic on living trees.

Clavulina rugosa
Clavulina
rugosa
The Hydnaceae, or Hedgehog Fungi are cap-and-stem mushrooms with a difference; they have teeth on the underside of the cap, rather than the gills of agarics or the pores of boletes.

Hydnum repandum
Hydnum
rufescens
There are about 200 European species identified within the order Cantharellales.

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