History Clavariaceae was originally
circumscribed (as "Clavariae") by French botanist and
mycologist François Fulgis Chevallier in 1826. It was one of five families (along with the
Agaricaceae,
Hydnaceae,
Polyporaceae, and
Thelephoraceae) that
Elias Fries used to divide the
Agaricales and
Aphyllophorales in his influential work
Systema Mycologicum. The family served as a convenient placement for all genera containing species with superficially similar club or coral-like fruitbodies. It was first
M.A. Donk and later
E.J.H. Corner who realized that, in this broad sense, the family was not a natural
phylogenetic assemblage of related species. Corner published his world
monograph in 1950 (revised in 1967 and updated in 1970), introducing modern concepts of many
genera of
clavarioid fungi. Corner included three genera in his concept of the Clavariaceae:
Clavaria,
Clavulinopsis, and
Ramariopsis.
Current status Molecular research, based on
cladistic analysis of
DNA sequences, has confirmed Corner's concept of the Clavariaceae, but has extended it to include
agarics (gilled mushrooms) in the genera
Camarophyllopsis,
Hodophilus, and
Lamelloclavaria. The clavarioid genera
Clavicorona,
Hirticlavula, and a revised concept of
Ceratellopsis are also included, as is the hydnoid genus
Mucronella and the corticioid genus
Hyphodontiella. ==Habitat and distribution==