Drawings of some ascomycete and basidiomycete spores

The taxa featured here are: Coltriciella dependens (1), Arachnocrea sp. (2), Nectria sp. (3), Austroboletus sp. (4), Dacryobolus sudans (5), Tubulicium vermiferum (6), Calostoma fuscum (7), Hydnangium carneum (8), Sporormiella sp. (9), Entoloma sp. (10), Hymenogaster sp. (11), Scutellinia sp. (12), Jafneadelphus ferrugineus (13), Gloniopsis praelonga (14) and Cryptodiscus sp. (15). The final figure shows 8 spores in an ascus..

Arachnocrea , Cryptodiscus, Gloniopsis, Jafneadelphus, Nectria, Scutellinia and Sporormiella are the ascomycete genera in the above list. The spores have not been drawn to the same scale, the aim being simply to show some of the variety in shape and ornamentation that can be found. The drawings are biased towards 'interesting' spores, for the majority of ascomycete and basidiomycete species have smooth spores and the most common shape is ellipsoid.