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Glossary

Fungi

The fungi have a complex and rather confusing taxonomy. For simplicity, let's just consider the main groups relevant to plant pathology.

Fungi

Chytridiomycetes

Dikarya

Ascomycota

Basidiomycota

Smuts

Smuts are a polyphyletic group. This means the smut lifestyle has evolved independently several times, so when we consider the smuts as a group we are considering several different branches of the tree of life. What unites them is producing large numbers of teliospores on the plants they parasitise[source?].

Smut fungi can be divided roughly into flower smuts and leaf smuts.

Flower Smuts

Flower smuts classically produce large numbers of teliospores in the anthers of their hosts, replacing the pollen. There are also a number of species which produce teliospores in the ovaries of their hosts, like Urocystis primulae and Tilletia spp. These species generally produce conidia in the anthers of the flower as well.

Microbotryum

Microbotryum sp. on Silene uniflora.
Microbotryum succisae on Succisa pratensis.
Microbotryum scabiosae on Knautia arvensis.

Urocystis

Urocystis primulae on a thrum-eyed flower of Primula vulgaris. The white conidia are visible in the mouth of the flower.
Urocystis primulae on a pin-eyed flower of Primula vulgaris. The conidia are visible around the anthers.

Most Urocystis species form spores in the leaves and are under Blister Smuts.

Ustilago

Ustilago perennans on Arrhenatherum elatius.
Ustilago perennans on Arrhenatherum elatius.

Note not all Ustilago species are flower smuts — some, like Ustilago perennans, form spores in the leaves, so I have put them under Blister Smuts.