E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Clavulina rugosa is variable but typically only slightly branched (simple or with 1-3 undivided short branches), whitish, and wrinkled, and has nearly round smooth spores on 2-spored basidia with strongly incurved sterigmata. Some authors have suggested that C. rugosa may be an atypical form of Clavulina coralloides, (Bessette(2)).

C. rugosa has been found in OR, VT, Panama, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Austria, Czech Republic, Pakistan, and Philippines, (Corner(3)). Distribution is north temperate where it is common, (Corner(2)). There are collections labeled Clavulina rugosa from BC and WA at the University of British Columbia.

Fruiting body:
0.3-1cm wide, 4-12cm high, simple or with 1-3 undivided short branches, often antler-like, cylindric, subacute, even, becoming more or less clavate, obtuse, and longitudinally rugulose [finely wrinkled], varying rugoso-bullate [wrinkled with bubble like swellings], even cerebriform [brain-like], often flattened, narrowing downward into an indistinct stem, (Corner(2)), up to 1cm wide at top, 5-12cm high, single or slightly branched, enlarged at the top, branchings few, irregular, blunt but rarely cristate; white; irregular and rugose [wrinkled], tuberculate, sulcate [grooved], (Lincoff)

Flesh:
rather tough, firm, (Corner(2)), abundant, firm; white, (Lincoff)

Branch color:
white to cream, rarely yellow, drying light ocher-yellow or antimony yellow, (Corner(2)), white or whitish (Lincoff)

Stem:
indistinct (Corner(2))

Odor:
none in particular (Lincoff), slight (Corner(2))

Taste:
none in particular (Lincoff), slight (Corner(2))

Microscopic:
spores 8-9 x 6-8 microns, 2-spored basidia with strongly incurved sterigmata, (Lincoff), spores 9-14 x 8-12 microns, (10-12 x 9-10 in Oregon collection), broadly oval-elliptic, smooth, with one droplet; basidia 40-85 x 6-9.5 microns, sterigmata 6-9 microns long; hymenium thickening to 150 microns, subhymenial hyphae 3-7 microns wide, interwoven, cystidia none; hyphae 40-120 x 3-13 microns, clamped, inflating, becoming slightly thick-walled, H-connections frequent, not secondarily septate, (Corner), spores 9-12 x 8-10 microns, broadly elliptic to nearly round, smooth, inamyloid; hyphal system monomitic, (Buczacki)

Spore Deposit:
spores referred to as white (Corner(2))