Fungi are widely distributed throughout our planet and are of great medical and environmental importance. The kingdom of Fungi  include yeasts, rusts, smuts, mildews, moulds & mushrooms. Slime moulds, although often referred to as fungi, are in the kingdom Chromista. 

Classification of fungi below the level of the kingdom is controversial and there doesn’t seem to be a single, widely-accepted system of fungal classification.  The information below is based on Encyclopaedia Britannica but my attempt at classification beyond this page is based on Kew Mycology and their species database.

The two biggest phyla are Ascomycota and Basidiomycota and all of the species I have photos of are in one of these two phyla.

• Phylum:  Ascomycota (sac fungi) – found in all terrestrial ecosystems world-wide, even in Antarctica, often involved in symbiotic relationships. Many are extremely useful eg baker’s yeast, but other can cause disease. Some of these are symbiotic with algae to form lichens. This phylum, together with the phylum Basidiomycota, is sometimes grouped together in the subkingdom Dikarya and referred to as the ‘higher’ fungi.
• Phylum: Basidiomycota (club fungi)- Parasitic or saprotrophic on plants or insects (have many different shapes, considerable variation exists even within species) This is a large phylum containing many groups including mushrooms and toadstools, bracket fungi, puffballs, earthstars and stinkhorns, club and coral fungi, tooth fungi, jelly fungi, rusts and smuts.
• Phylum Chytridiomycota (Chytrids) – simplest and most primitive Eumycota, or true fungi are mainly aquatic, some parasitic
  • Class Chytridiomycetes
  • Class Monoblepharidomycetes
• Phylum Neocallimastigomycota – found in digestive tracts of herbivores
  • • Class Neocallimastigomycetes
• Phylum Blastocladiomycota – parasitic on plants and animals
  • Class Blastocladiomycetes
• Phylum Microsporidia – parasitic on animals and protists
• Phylum Glomeromycota – Forms obligate, mutualistic, symbiotic relationships in which hyphae penetrate into the cells of roots of plants and trees
  • Class Archaeosporomycetes
  • Class Glomeromycetes


• Subphyla
  • Subphylum Mucoromycotina (incertae sedis – not assigned to any phylum)
  • Subphylum Entomophthoromycotina (incertae sedis)
  • Subphylum Zoopagomycotina (incertae sedis)
  • Subphylum Kickxellomycotina (incertae sedis)