Which phylum of fungi includes mushrooms, puffballs, and bracket fungi?

The phylum of fungi that includes mushrooms, puffballs, and bracket fungi is Basidiomycota.

Basidiomycota is one of the two major branches of Dikarya, often called the higher fungi; the other is Ascomycota. Its members produce sexual spores called basidiospores on specialized structures known as basidia. The name club fungi refers to the club-like shape of many basidia.

The phylum includes familiar gilled mushrooms, puffballs, bracket fungi, boletes, chanterelles, stinkhorns, jelly fungi, rusts, and smuts. Puffballs release mature spores from an enclosed fruiting body, while bracket fungi commonly form shelf-like structures on wood. These very different appearances can therefore belong to the same broad lineage.

A common misconception is that Basidiomycota means only the classic mushrooms found in shops. It also includes microscopic yeasts and major plant pathogens such as rust and smut fungi. By contrast, morels and truffles belong to Ascomycota. Modern classification relies heavily on DNA evidence, so older groupings based only on fruiting-body shape have been revised.