Matchmaker:
Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest
Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest
Glossary - M, N and O
This is a list of terms used in mushroom descriptions.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
M
| TERM | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| macrocystidium (plural macrocystidia) | cystidium arising deep in the flesh of Lactarius or Russula; any large cystidium |
| macromorphological | concerning structure that can be seen with the naked eye |
| macroscopic | visible to the naked eye, without a microscope |
| maculate | spotted |
| madder brown | a moderate grayish red |
| magenta | brilliant mauvish crimson |
| mammiform | breastlike, with a protuberance, with a nipple |
| mammillate | breastlike, with a hardened protuberance, with a nipple |
| marcescent | able to revive when moistened after being dried |
| margin | the edge of the cap or gills |
| marginate | having a distinct margin: when discussing gills the edge has a different color, often used to mean a darker or brighter color; when discussing the bulb on a stem indicates a flange (circular ridge) at the top of the bulb |
| maroon | brownish crimson |
| Mars brown | dark rusty brown |
| matted-fibrillose | covered with fibrils that are interwoven (matted) so that surface looks like felt, same as felty (tomentose differs in having fibrils arranged like wool blanket i.e. fluffy and not as matted) |
| mauve | pale purple |
| mealy | of odor, smelling like fresh meal, same as farinaceous; of appearance, granular |
| median | of a ring, near the middle of stem |
| melleous | honey-colored |
| Melzer's reagent | a solution containing 1.5 gm or potassium iodide, 0.5 gm of iodine and 20 gm of chloral hydrate per 20cc of water |
| membranaceous | same as membranous |
| membranous | like a membrane or skinlike or somewhat like kleenex |
| metachromatic | applies to a two-layered spore wall whose inner layer becomes red in cotton blue, while the outer wall becomes blue; more generally said of hyphae basidia and spores which turn reddish to violet in cresyl blue |
| metuloid | encrusted cystidium thick-walled at maturity and rounded at the top, or at least not pointed |
| micaceous | like flecks of mica |
| micromorphological | concerning microscopic structure |
| micron | one thousandth of a millimeter, or one millionth of a meter |
| microscopic | discernible only with a microscope |
| mild | not with distinctly marked quality |
| milk | juice or latex of a Lactarius |
| mixed | referring to forests containing both conifer and broadleaved trees |
| moderately broad | of gills, with height intermediate between narrow and broad |
| moniliform | having swellings at regular intervals like a string of beads |
| monocot | short for monocotyledon |
| monocotyledon | flowering plant with one seed-leaf (orchids, irises, grasses, etc) |
| monomitic | consisting of generative hyphae only |
| mottled | spotted, as in the uneven ripening of spores in the genus Panaeolus |
| movable | of an annulus, that can be moved more or less easily up and down the stem |
| mucilaginous | slimy |
| mucronate | pointed, tipped with an abrupt, short point from a flatter surface |
| mummy brown | very dark brown with no violet tinge |
| muricate | of cystidium, bristling with crystals |
| muscicolous | growing on or among mosses, same as bryicolous |
| mushroom | the fruiting body of a fungus, especially one that has gills (agaric) or a stem and pores ending in tubes (bolete) |
| mycelium (plural mycelia) | network of fungal cells that may or may not amass together and form a mushroom |
| mycenoid | resembling a mushroom of the genus Mycena: tall, slender mushrooms with long cartilaginous stems (no ring or volva), and comparatively small conic to bellshaped caps with attached but not decurrent gills |
| mycology | the science or the study of fungi |
| mycophagist | one who eats fungi |
| mycorrhiza | a particular symbiotic relationship with the roots of a seed plant, see ectomycorrhiza and endomycorrhiza; the rootlets of trees that are covered or permeated by the mycelium of fungi |
| mycorrhizal | forming mycorrhiza |
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
N
| TERM | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| naked | without hairs or other tissue on surface, as used here equivalent to bald and glabrous |
| napiform | turnip-shaped; of cystidia, swollen or bulbous above but tapering rather abruptly to the base |
| narrow | of gills, the opposite of broad, refers to the height of the gill, which may be narrow, moderately broad or broad |
| Natal brown | dark brown with a reddish-vinaceous cast |
| naucorioid | applied to any mushroom with a fleshy type, attached gills which are not sinuate or decurrent, and lacking a ring or a volva |
| neotype | specimen or other material designated as nomenclatural type when all the original material is missing |
| nitrous | of odor, like nitric acid, similar to alkaline bleach-like odor |
| nodule | small bump, lump, or knot |
| nodulose | of spores, covered with bumps |
| nom. prov. | abbreviation for nomen provisorium |
| nomen provisorium | a name proposed provisionally, not yet an official name |
| nonamyloid | remaining clear or becoming yellow in Melzer's reagent, not amyloid or dextrinoid, same as inamyloid - distinguish from "not amyloid" which would include nonamyloid and dextrinoid |
| notched | refers to gills that are uncinate or sinuate or emarginate, as if a wedge of gill had been removed near the stem: if the line of the bottom edge of the gill curves down sharply, gills are uncinate, if it curves gradually toward the stem reaching it more or less horizontally, gills are sinuate (emarginate) |
| nutant | nodding |
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
O
| TERM | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| obclavate | club-shaped in the opposite direction to that expected; of cystidia, with base swollen and narrowing at middle and top |
| obconic | like an ice-cream cone with point down |
| obligate | invariably found in a particular situation, usually in reference to organisms that must live in a particular association with another |
| oblong | of spores, elongated with approximately parallel sides; according to one set of criteria, ratio of length to width is 1.6-2: shorter would be elliptic and longer cylindric; however, spores in this range are often referred to as narrowly elliptic |
| obovate | ovate with the larger end in the opposite direction to the usual |
| obovoid | ovoid with the larger end in the opposite direction to the usual |
| obpyriform | pear-shaped in the opposite direction to the usual one |
| obsolete | (of annulus, scales etc.) very imperfectly developed, hardly perceptible; of terms, no longer in use |
| obtuse | blunt, not pointed; greater than a right angle |
| obtusely conic | rounded or blunt cone-shaped |
| obtusely umbonate | broadly umbonate, not with sharp umbo |
| ochraceous | ochre-yellowish, yellow-orange with a brownish tinge |
| ochraceous-buff | a very pale but dingy yellow |
| ochraceous-tawny | like the color of a dingy or dirty lion |
| ochre | between warm buff and yellow to brownish orange |
| ochreate | of volva, sheathing the stem at base like a stocking |
| olivaceous | olive gray-brown; with an olive shade |
| omphalinoid | of general form of the genus Omphalina, with broadly convex to depressed cap, decurrent or subdecurrent gills, cartilaginous stem, and no ring or volva |
| opaque | not transparent or translucent, often used of cap margin where gills do not show through as striations |
| orbicular | circular |
| order | a classification grouping below class but above family, genus and species: suffix is -ales |
| organism | individual living bacterium, protozoan, animal, plant, fungus etc. |
| ornamentation | any projections outside the structural surface such as fibrils, tomentum, hairs, warts, scales, spines, ridges, etc. |
| ornamentation type | Types of Russula spore ornamentation have been designated by Singer (1932), using Roman numerals, Pearson, (P1-P11), Rayner (15 types), and Dave Patterson in his Key to the Eastern U.S. Russulas (A1 to E3). The last are used in this program. For an illustration of the Patterson types, use the Glossary on the List menu. |
| outer veil | same as universal veil |
| oval | like the outline of an egg |
| ovate | similar to oval but some regard as more pointed at the narrower end |
| ovoid | shaped like an egg, same as oval, but sometimes implying 3-dimensional shape |