CULTIVATION AND MOLECULAR CHARACTERISATION OF Auricularia SPECIES IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Victor Segun EKUN 253 PAGES (50895 WORDS) Botany Thesis

Mushroom is a macro-fungus with a unique fruiting body, that can be easily seen with the naked eye and large enough to be picked by hand, which can be either epigeous or hypogenous (Chang and Miles, 2004) Macrofungi are lower plants that lack flowers and fruits of the higher orders (Adejumo and Awosanya, 2005; Ayodele and Akpaja, 2007). There are two major groups of macrofungi which are toadstools and mushrooms. Mushrooms locally known as ‘olu’ in the Southwestern Nigeria are a group of fungi belonging to the class Basidiomycetes and order Agaricales. Basidiomycetes or Ascomycetes are found in moist wood, soils rich in organic matter and humus, animal wastes in the form of vegetative mycelium (Zied et al.,2011).