Chemical Reactions: tissue dark green in FeCl3; no reaction in KOH (solution leaching to pale yellow or yellow), (Methven)
Odor: not distinctive (Castellano, Methven)
Taste: not distinctive (Castellano, Methven)
Microscopic: spores 18-24 x 4-6 microns, narrowly elliptic, boletoid or sway-backed in profile, smooth, inamyloid, pale yellow in KOH, thin-walled, contents multiguttulate and refringent to aguttulate and amorphous; basidia (2-)4-spored, 65-105 x 8-12.5 microns, clavate, clamped, sterigmata 8-9.5 microns long; leptocystidia scattered and scarcely projecting, 50-70 x 2.5-5 microns, "cylindric to narrowly clavate, at times apically or subapically branched", walls thin and smooth, contents amorphous, pale yellow in KOH, clamp connections uninflated; hymenium extending over the apex of the fruitbody; subhymenium rudimentary; hyphae of trama 3-12 microns wide, "more or less parallel to longitudinally interwoven basally, more loosely interwoven upward, radially interwoven beneath the subhymenium, uninflated or inflated (-12 microns), branched", walls thin or irregularly thickened to 1 micron wide, smooth, contents amorphous, pale yellow in KOH, clamp connections uninflated or inflated (-12 microns), sometimes medallion or ampulliform; gloeoplerous hyphae 3-9.5 microns wide, "arising from generative hyphae at clamp connections, scattered throughout the trama, more abundant downward, uninflated, inflated (-14 microns) or strangulated, branched", walls thin and smooth, contents subopalescent, pale yellow in KOH, refractive under phase contrast, clamped, (Methven), spores (13)16-24(28) x 4-6 microns; basidia 60-115 x 8.5-13 microns, (Corner(3))
Spore Deposit: "pinkish buff" (Petersen, using Ridgway color), ''yellowish white'' to ''pale orange'', "light buff", "pale ochraceous-buff" or "cartridge buff", (Methven)
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Clavariadelphus ligula: Petersen says "Macrochemically as gross morphologically, it is impossible to separate C. ligulus and C. sachalinensis, but the two are easily distinguished microscopically", (Petersen). Methven agrees, "Although basidiocarps of C. sachalinensis are impossible to distinguish from those of C. ligula in the field, they can be readily distinguished microscopically by the size of the basidia and the basidiospores", (Methven). C. ligula is distinguished by spore size, 12-16.5 x 3.5-4.5 microns instead of 18-24 x 4-6 microns, (Trudell). Clavariadelphus mucronatus has different height, shape and color, and size of spores, (Methven). Clavaria lignicola of Arizona, Colorado, and Utah has average spore width greater than 6 microns, (Trudell). See also SIMILAR section of Clavariadelphus occidentalis.
Habitat
scattered to gregarious on soil or duff, under mixed conifers, June through October, (Castellano), scattered to gregarious; "terrestrial; duff; under mixed conifers", (Methven)