THE mycology glossary

From my paper copy of 'Webster's New World College Dictionary Fourth Edition', copyright 1999, (dictionary define thyself?) the first definition of dictionary is 'a book of alphabetically listed words in language, with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and other information; lexicon.'

Glossary is defined as 'a list of difficult, technical, or foreign terms with definitions or translations, as for some particular author, field of knowledge, etc., often included in alphabetical listing at the end of a textbook.'

Note that I had to manually type these words in. In this case there is no copy and paste.

Note also the 'etc. abbreviation for 'et cetera' defined in same book as 'and others, and the like, and the rest, and so forth.' I am not saying Webster was just trying to sound smart using etc. here, but I think sometimes people do use et cetera as a lazy crutch. When I am in search of complete information, I read 'etc.' as this is incomplete and I have more searching to do.

We will have to deal with etc. when we run across it related to characteristics of fungi. No other way to be complete.

I have created small lists of definitions on computers and paper and discarded them after that immediate use or because the weight of maintaining them grew too large and difficult. Is this word included or duplicated? Hand written. Where is that scrap of paper, notebook, etc? (etc. again.) Manually typed or copy and paste where I could. What format? Excel? Text? Word? Where did I save THAT file? On which computer? Where is it on the all knowing cloud?

I have also used Mushroom Observer and Mushroom Expert and others at times. But how will they hold up over time?

My current state of opinion as as February 2026 is that I will begin an effort to rely on the publicly maintained wikipedia Glossary of Mycology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_mycology Glossary of Mycology. There is a printable version and you can download as PDF.

The following is an example demonstrating the need for and application of the auto-glossary feature. The glossary used is Wikipedia's Glossary of Mycology.

Studying the DISCOMYCETES from initiation to advanced levels René Dougoud

What are the Discomycetes?

Discomycetes are filamentous ascomycetes, characterised by septate and branched filaments that form the mycelium and are also found in the sporophore.

They are distinguished from most yeasts, which are unicellular and subspherical. Like many ascomycetes, discomycetes have holomorphic species, i.e. they have two distinct stages of reproduction, one sexual or teleomorph, the other asexual or anamorph. These stages are indicated by the presence of easily visible sporophores, producing ascospores, and by conidiophores, which are usually discrete or invisible to the naked eye, producing conidiospores. The latter usually live as saprotrophs, but can be symbiotic or parasitic.

The sporophores usually form apothecia of various colours and sizes, which may or may not be supported by a stipe. They are usually cup-shaped, superficial, sometimes erumpent, or hypogeous, in this case they form cleistothecia, or grow from a sclerotium or stroma. The outer surface can be smooth or furfuraceous, i.e. covered with small scales or fine granulation, or more or less covered with sometimes barely visible flexuous or stiff hairs, hyaline or coloured. The hymenium, the fertile part, is in direct contact with the exterior, more rarely contained in a cleistothecium: composed of asci and paraphyses, sometimes mixed with hairs. The asci are operculate or inoperculate. with or without croziers, with or without an amyloid apical pore, sometimes hemiamyloid; usually cylindrical, more or less swollen in the upper part, sometimes subspherical, usually containing 8 ascospores, sometimes fewer or many more. Ascospores are generally hyaline, varying from spherical to ellipsoidal, cylindrical, filiform, guttulate or not, unicellular or multicellular, with smooth or ornamented walls. The paraphyses, sterile organs, are cylindrical, narrow, often swollen at the top, simple or forked, with more or less coloured contents, with or without refractive vacuoles. The flesh is generally soft and yielding, sometimes slightly elastic, occasionally more or less gelatinous, generally not very thick, usually composed of several layers distinguished by the shape of its cells.

Substrates are various, often characteristic for each species: various types of soil, wood, stems of herbaceous plants, leaves, fruit (usually in dead state) and excrement.