Endogonaceae Paol.

Fruiting body hypogeous or on debris, globose, irregular, sometimes resupinate, 1–10 mm in diam., may be composed of aggregated zygosporangial clusters, with zygospores formed on apposed suspensors. Hyphae of fruiting body tissue coenocytic, aseptate, sometimes with secondary septa that form micropores. Reproductive structures as zygosporangia, rarely azygosporangia (co-existing with zygosporangia in Endogonepisiformis) or chlamydospores (in Vinositunica), distributed randomly or radially in fruiting bodies, 100–700 μm diam., with yellow granular contents. Zygosporangial wall comprises outer sporangiothecium with 1–4 openings and inner eusporium with no openings. Azygosporangia rare, with a single-layered wall and separated from the single suspensor by a gametangial septum. Chlamydospore wall continuous, multilayered, with dense subtending hyphae, lacking septa. Forms a monophyletic group in Endogonomycetes as the least inclusive clade covering accessions EUK1601498, EUK1100757, LC002628, LC431107, EUK1104693 and UDB025468.

Includes taxa with or without fruiting bodies and with ectomycorrhizal, arbuscular mycorrhizal and saprotrophic lifestyles. Endogonales harbours Endogonaceae, Jimgerdemanniaceae and Vinositunicaceae families, as well as seven potentially family-level taxa, collectively comprising >200 species based on ITS and LSU sequences. Order description is adapted from Morton and Benny (1990) and Yamamoto et al. (2020).