What is "basidiomycota"

Basidiomycota \Ba*sid`i*o*my*co"ta\, n. pl. (Bot.) [NL., fr. NL. & E. basidium + Gr. ?, ?, fungus.] (Bot.) A large subdivision of the kingdom Fungi coextensive with the phylum Basidiomycetes, characterized by having the spores borne on a basidium. It embraces those fungi best known to the public, such as mushrooms, toadstools, etc. Among the classes of the Basidiomycota are: Gasteromycetes (puffballs); Tiliomycetes (comprising the orders Ustilaginales (smuts) and Uredinales (rusts)); and Hymenomycetes (mushrooms; toadstools; agarics; bracket fungi).

Note: In the 1913 Webster, the Basidiomycetes were defined as "co["o]rdinate with the Ascomycetes", and other fungal phyla (the Zygomycota and Deuteromycota) were not mentioned.

Syn: Basidiomycota, subdivision Basidiomycota, subdivision Basidiomycotina.

Basidiomycota is one of two large phyla that, together with the Ascomycota, constitute the subkingdom Dikarya (often referred to as the "higher fungi") within the kingdom Fungi.

More specifically the Basidiomycota include these groups: mushrooms, puffballs, stinkhorns, bracket fungi, other polypores, jelly fungi, boletes, chanterelles, earth stars, smuts, bunts, rusts, mirror yeasts, and the human pathogenic yeast Cryptococcus.

Basidiomycota are filamentous fungi composed of hyphae (except for yeasts), and reproduce sexually via the formation of specialized club-shaped end cells called basidia that normally bear external meiospores (usually four). These specialized spores are called basidiospores. However, some Basidiomycota reproduce asexually in addition or exclusively. Basidiomycota that reproduce asexually (discussed below) can be recognized as members of this phylum by gross similarity to others, by the formation of a distinctive anatomical feature (the clamp connection - see below), cell wall components, and definitively by phylogenetic molecular analysis of DNA sequence data.