Summary:
Ramaria caulifloriformis has small to medium, cauliflower-shaped to fan-shaped fruitbodies with pale buff to pale pinkish buff branches, the tips of which often turn dark brown where exposed, large stem with abortive branchlets, short wide spores with mostly discrete warts, and clamp connections. Some authors recognize Ramaria cartilaginea Marr & D.E. Stuntz as a separate species, based on a different color (branches are pale yellow turning more tannish yellow during maturation - especially near tips, the tips colored as branches when young and contrasting slightly when old): it is microscopically very close to R. caulifloriformis.
Ramaria caulifloriformis has been found in ID, OR, CA, and MI, (Petersen). There is a collection from BC (as Ramaria cartilaginea) at the University of British Columbia.
Fruiting body:
4.5-10cm wide, 3-13cm high, small to medium, broad, +/- fan-shaped, cauliflower-like when young, (Scates-Barnhart), up to 16cm x 15cm, circular to spheropedunculate in outline, major branches numerous, crowded, hardly circular in cross-section, branches in 3-6 ranks, lobed in section, internode length diminishing upward gradually when mature, axils rounded, tips double-dichotomous when young, becoming cusped or knobby by maturity, (Petersen)
Flesh:
brittle like cartilage to gelatinous; colored +/- like surface, (Scates-Barnhart), in major branches solid and white, in branches "pale ochraceous buff" (Ridgway color); in stem solid to heterogeneous, moist but not slippery or soapy, not hygrophanous, white to off-white, not showing a brown band or patch, (Petersen)
Branch color:
light brownish yellow when young, becoming more tan when old and finally brownish orange, tips the same, (Scates-Barnhart), pallid buff to pallid pinkish buff; tips pallid pinkish buff, often turning dark brown where exposed or dried in the field, all upper parts slowly "cinnamon" (Ridgway color) when old, sometimes "reluctantly vinescent", (Petersen), pale pinkish, cinnamon to pallid pinkish buff, tips pink buff, cinnamon buff, often turning dark brown where exposed or dried in the field, all parts slowly "cinnamon" when old, (Exeter(1))
Stem:
up to 4cm x 5cm, single to falsely fasciculate [bundled], rounded, involving substrate when picked, numerous abortive branchlets and clusters, especially high on stem; off-white where protected, hardly brunnescent; tomentose between substrate fragments, mycelial at base, (Petersen), base white, a band of light yellow above the base, (Scates-Barnhart)
Chemical Reactions:
IKI reaction on stem flesh equivocal; KOH browning on hymenium; ferric chloride in water positive, probably with branch sections, (Petersen)
Taste:
negligible to faintly bean-like or slowly musty, (Petersen), mild (Scates-Barnhart)
Microscopic:
spores 8.3-10.4 x 4.7-5.8 microns, average 9.3 x 5.1 microns, short-cylindric to broadly elliptic, distinctly roughened in profile, small warts, mostly discrete, some lobed in outline, contents deep yellow, usually multigranular or with 2-4 amorphous droplets, wall up to 0.2 microns thick; basidia 4-spored, 45-60 x 7-8.5 microns, clavate, clamped, multiguttulate to multigranular when mature, strongly cyanophilic; clamp connections present, (Petersen)
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