Dacrymycetes

The Dacrymycetes are a class of fungi in the Basidiomycota. The class currently contains the single order Dacrymycetales, with a second proposed order Unilacrymales now treated at the family level. The order contains four families and has a cosmopolitan distribution.

All fungi in the Dacrymycetes are wood-rotting saprotrophs. Basidiocarps (fruit bodies) are ceraceous to gelatinous, typically yellow to orange as a result of carotenoid pigments, and variously corticioid (effused and patch-forming), disc- or cushion-shaped, spathulate, or clavarioid (club or coral-like). Microscopically, nearly all species have distinctive Y-shaped holobasidia.