A hypha (plural hyphae) is a long, branching filamentous structure of a fungus, and also of unrelated Actinobacteria.
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It was originally extracted from Streptomyces nodosus, a filamentous bacterium, in 1955 at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research from cultures of an undescribed streptomycete isolated from the soil collected in the Orinoco River region of Venezuela.
Cortinarius cinnamomeus colonizes the root systems of the sedges Carex flacca and Carex pilulifera, forming ectomycorrhizal-like structures lacking a Hartig net—a network of hyphae that penetrate between the epidermal and cortical cells of the root.
In addition to having septate basidia, heterobasidiomycetes also frequently possess large irregularly shaped sterigmata and spores that are capable of self-replication - a process where a spore, instead of germinating into a vegetative hypha, gives rise to a sterigma and a new spore, which is then discharged as if from a normal basidium.
The terrestrial larvae usually feed on fungi, especially the fruiting bodies but also spores and hyphae, but some species have been recorded on mosses and liverworts.