• Journal of Mushroom
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.52-59
• /
• 2005

The Aphyllophorales is a large order containing about 2,000 known species. Many of these are the bracket and coral fungi. The vast majority of these fungi are saprophytic on the plant debris. Many species are significant in decomposing plant remains, as they are able to digest cellulose or lignin that occurs in plant cell walls. Many of these fungi have been involved in everyday human affairs. A few were used medicinally by the Greeks and Romans as a remedy for many complaints, including colic, fractured limbs and bruises. Other bracket fungi have been used as curry combs for horses, as snuff, as razor strops and as a source of dye for clothing. The texture of the basidiocarp may be similar to that of cork, wood, leather, paper, or cartilage. Unlike the basidiocarps of the Order Agaricales, the basidiocarps of the Aphyllophorales are not fleshly and moist. Division of the members of the Aphyllophorales into genera was originally made on the basis of gross morphology of the basidiocarp and hymenium and Donk(1964) recognizes 22 families in this order. The species and genus whose typical in Aphylloporales were listed in Table. with related information. The ITS region sequence of some genus were found by BLAST search. Sequences retrieved from GenBank were visually aligned by the program CLUSTAL G. As a result, the medicinal mushroom was separated in four groups. In this multiple alignment, the sequence analysis among Fomes group, Inonotus group and Phellinus group showed high genetic similarity except Hericium group and Sparassis group.