A detailed survey on fungal distribution and characterization under Bankura District, West Bengal, India

Fungi are the eukaryotic organism which shows heterotrophic nutrition. Wild edible mushrooms, which are abundant in proteins, are prepared as delicious cuisine. This attribute makes it a lucrative venture for numerous indigenous communities, particularly during the rainy season. Many fungi have medicinal properties. A total of 14,000 species are verified, among them 7000 are known for edible nature and only 10% thought to be poisonous. Now many researchers are showing their interest on fungi to gain knowledge about their diversity, morphological, anatomical features and bio-chemical nature. In the present study 3 different places namely Bishnupur, Ramsagar and Onda of Bankura District have been surveyed. A total of 24 fungal species have been collected and identified among which total number of edible fungi are 8, total numbers of poisonous fungi are 4 and total numbers of inedible fungi are 12. It has been known that 5 fungi are medicinally used by the local tribal people. The anatomical study shows that the gills are parallelly arranged, basidia mostly club shaped, spores are bilayered and brown in colour. The majority of collected fungi are under different families of division Basidiomycota and only one species that is Daldinia concentrica falls under the family Xylariaceae belonging to the division Ascomycota. The present study also shows that Agaricaceae family contains highest number of genus of total fungal population and Basidiomycota members (with 95.8% occurrence) so dominant in the region in comparison to those of Ascomycota (with 4.2% occurrence) members.