Ustilaginales
The Ustilaginales are an order of fungi within the class Ustilaginomycetes. The order contained 8 families, 49 genera, and 851 species in 2008.
In 2011, monotypic family Pericladiaceae holding just Pericladium was added.
Also family Cintractiellaceae was later placed in a monotypic order Cintractiellales in 2020.
Ustinaginales is also known and classified as the smut fungi. They are serious plant pathogens, with only the dikaryotic stage being obligately parasitic.Morphology
Has a thick-walled resting spore, known as the "brand" spore or chlamydospore.They can infect corn plants producing tumor-like galls that render the ears unsaleable. This corn smut, is also known as huitlacoche and sold canned for consumption in Latin America.Almost all Ustilaginales species share a dimorphic life cycle that includes an asexual, saprophitic yeast-like stage and a filamentous sexual stage that is required to parasitize a host. The parasitic phase involves karyogamy, the process of fusing two haploid nuclei, followed by meiosis. Each meiosis results in a septated basidium bearing four haploid basidiospores which can then proceed to yeast-like growth. During meiosis, genes are expressed that function in recombination and DNA repair.