Doassansioideae Azbukina & Karatygin, 1990 The Melaniellaceae are a family of fungi in the division Basidiomycota and order of Doassansiales.

[1] They are highly unusual, as there are only five out of the 1200 estimated known species of smut fungus that are found on hosts that are not flowering plants.

They have hyphae with clamp connections, exclusively intercellular, septal pore simple with membrane caps, but the haustoria is absent but specialized interaction apparatus present with non-homogenous contents.

The teliospores are embedded in the host tissue, they are variable in shape and size, often polyhedral due to compression, dark brown, thick walled, smooth or tuberculate.

The basidia (a spore-producing structure) is formed directly from germinating teliospores, aseptate (exobasidium type), hypha like, thin walled, usually with a cluster of 4 apical (top of apex), sterigmata.