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Fungi represent the second largest group of organisms, second only to insects
in the number of species estimated to occur on earth. Fungi can be divided into four large groups:
Basidiomycota (mushrooms), Ascomycota (cup fungi, yeasts), Zygomycota (bread molds), and Chytridiomycota
(chytrids). Other organisms traditionally studied by mycologists, but no longer classified in the Kingdom
Fungi, include the Myxomycetes (slime molds) and Oomycetes (water molds).
The Illinois Natural History Survey (ILLS) Mycology Collection contains over 58,000 collections including 12,000 basidiomycetes,
13,500 ascomycetes, 15,000 imperfect fungi, 8,800 lichens, 1,200 zygomycetes and oomycetes, and 1,400 myxomycetes. The collection
also possesses 917 type specimens, mostly ascomycetes and imperfect fungi, including 235 holotypes and 682 isotypes and/or paratypes.
All collections have been identified to genus and most to species. Collection information for all collections have been entered
into the fungal database. The fungi are mostly collected from throughout North America with a large plant pathological collection
from Illinois, a large aquatic ascomycete collection from the United States and Canada, and a smaller ascomycete collection from
the neotropics.
Find out more about the history of the mycological collections of the Illinois Natural History Survey.
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