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

Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on wood, 2) fruitbodies that are thin, fibrous-cottony-membranous, brown to olive-brown, and tightly attached, the margin lighter in color and fringed with fine rhizomorphs, 3) spores that are elliptic to oval, smooth, inamyloid, and light brown, 4) cystidia that are cylindric, multiply septate, and irregularly encrusted, and 5) a monomitic hyphal system, the hyphae having scattered clamp connections. Luther(4) advises looking under a dissecting scope to find suitable areas to search for cystidia under the compound microscope.

Coniophora olivacea has been found in BC, WA, OR, ID, MB, NS, ON, PQ, SK, YT, AL, AZ, CA, CO, GA, IA, LA, MA, MD, ME, MN, MO, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, PA, SC, VT, and WV, (Ginns). It has also been found in Europe (including Switzerland), and Asia, (Breitenbach).

Fruiting body:
resupinate, forming thin patches several centimeters across, tightly attached to wood, fibrous-cottony to cottony membranous; brown to olive-brown; smooth to slightly verrucose; margin fringed with fine rhizomorphs and lighter than the rest of the surface, (Breitenbach), spore deposit pale brown (Buczacki)

Microscopic:
SPORES 8-10.5 x 4.5-5.5 microns, elliptic to oval, smooth, inamyloid, light brown; BASIDIA 4-spored, 30-45 x 6-7 microns, narrowly clavate, without basal clamp connection; CYSTIDIA 100-200 x 10-15 microns, cylindric, "thick-walled, multiply septate, tip blunt to somewhat widened, irregularly incrusted" (in illustration the encrustation not just at tip); HYPHAE monomitic 4-8 microns wide, brown, thin-walled, scattered septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)