Mushroom, called higher fungus, generally means macrofungus with a distinctive fruiting body which can be either hypogeous or epigeous, large enough to be seen with the naked eye and to be picked by hand. And mushrooms belong to the group of organisms called fungi, because of having no chlorophyll, to manufacture their own food in the present of sunlight. The mushrooms have with very various shapes and colored, and with a different habitats, and also a complex life cycle having both teleomorphs, forming carphophores with hymenium producing spores, and anamorphs, mycelial growth continuaslly without sexual stage. They are found worldly from the arctic, temperate, to tropical zone. and one of the most interesting organisms. The taxonomic system is hierarchical with Kingdom as the highes rank. The kingdom of fungi has two Divisions : the Eumycota, or true fungi, and the Myxomycota, The Eumycota is composed of fiive Subdivisions, two of which contain mushrooms: Basidiomycotina and the Ascomycotina. The Basiciomycotina which is divided into tree classes Heterobasidiomycetes, Homobasidiomycetes, and Teliomyctes. Teliomycetes contains the fungi responsible for the important plant disease. There are two subclasses Hymenomycetidae and Gasteromycetidae in Homobasidiomyctes. The Basidiomycotina are a total of 22,244 species, 1,428 genera, 165 families, 41 orders and 3 divisions, worldly. In Korea, a total of 1302 species, 362 genera belonging to Basidiomycota and 190species, 83genera in Ascomycota have been recorded.

• 석순자(농촌진흥청 농업과학기술원 응용미생물과)