Class Pezizomycetes

The Pezizomycetes consist of 1 order, Pezizales, with 24 families, 297 genera, and more than 2,980 species. It includes many of the well-known ascomycete macrofungi, such as morels, truffles, and the larger cup fungi.

Order Pezizales

The Pezizales are characterized by the production of single-walled asci that open when their terminal lid or operculum ruptures. Species in this order produce asci in apothecia, although these may be further modified morphologically by becoming highly convoluted (such as morels) or completely closed (truffles). Apothecia range in size from 1 millimetre or less in diameter to large fleshy fruiting bodies several centimetres in diameter.

Family Caloscyphaceae

This family contains only one species, Caloscypha fulgens, which forms apothecia that are large (up to 5 centimetres in diameter) and yellow to yellowish-orange with a bluish tinge at the edge. This species is psychrophilic (grows in cold temperature), and its apothecia are often formed in the forest litter where snowbanks have receded. Ascospores are smooth, hyaline, globose, and produced in eight-spored operculate asci. The fungus produces a mould-like conidial state that is bright bluish-green. Caloscypha fulgens is pathogenic on conifer seeds such as Abies, Picea, Pinus, and Pseudotsuga.

Family Rhizinaceae

This family contains two genera and only three species, all of which are associated with burned soil. Rhizina is the only genus that produces apothecia, which are large, dull brown and fleshy, and often associated with dead conifer seedlings. Rhizina ascospores are large and thick-walled, and remain dormant in the soil until activated by heat from fires.

• Rhizina root rot
  Pathogen name: Rhizina undulata Fr.:Fr.