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Species Information
Summary: Clavulina cinerea is profusely branched from a short base, and branches are pallid, grayish, or purple-gray. Microscopic features include broadly elliptic to nearly round, smooth spores, and 2-spored basidia. It is sometimes blackened from the base upward when attacked by Helminthosphaeria clavariarum, a parasitic fungus. Clavulina cinerea is considered to be common in north temperate parts of the world (Corner(2)).
It has been reported from CA (Arora), and BC (in Redhead(5)). There are collections labeled as this species from BC at the Pacific Forestry Centre and the University of British Columbia, and collections from WA and OR at Oregon State University.
Fruiting body: 2-11cm wide, 2-11cm high, "erect or somewhat spreading, profusely branched", branches often irregular in shape, often resulting in somewhat tangled appearance, smooth or wrinkled to somewhat flattened, tips acute or blunt, often forked, (Arora), 2.5-10cm high, generally much branched with compact branches, stout and polychotomous in lower part, dichotomous in upper part with blunt tips, "sometimes flattened and toothed but seldom slightly cristate, not fimbriate, occasionally subsimple"; branches becoming longitudinally rugulose [finely wrinkled], rather irregular and unequal, (Corner)
Branch color: pallid soon becoming grayish to ashy gray, purple-gray, bluish gray, dark gray, or even brownish gray, (Arora), gray to dark cinereous [ash-gray], often tinged purplish, often brownish when old, (Corner), white when young, becoming ashy gray, (Bessette)
Stem: short, fleshy sterile base or "trunk"''; colored like branches or often whitish at very base, (Arora), up to 3cm long and 1cm wide, sometimes apparently absent; white or colored as branches, (Corner)
Odor: none in particular (Corner)
Taste: usually mild (Arora), none in particular (Corner)
Microscopic: spores 6.5-11 x 5.5-10 microns, broadly elliptic to nearly round, smooth; basidia 2-spored, (Arora), spores 6.5-11 x 6-10 microns, nearly round or broadly elliptic, smooth, with one droplet; basidia 40-70 x 5-12 microns, sterigmata 6-7.5 microns; hymenium thickening to 200 microns, subhymenial hyphae 3-5 microns wide, cystidia none; hyphae 25-170 x 3-15(24) microns, clamped, (Corner), spores inamyloid (Bessette)
Spore Deposit: white (Arora), whitish or yellowish (Phillips)
Habitat / Range
single, scattered, or in groups "on ground in mixed woods and under conifers", (Arora), scattered or in groups or clumps in moss on the ground or pine needles in coniferous or mixed woods, August to October, (Phillips)
Similar Species
The Clavulina coralloides group is closely related but paler in color (Arora), Clavulina coralloides is typically sparingly branched except near the tip, which is crested and usually lacks the gray tones, (Bessette). Confusion is created when a species in the Clavulina coralloides group is attacked by the gray to blackish parasitic fungus, Helminthosphaeria clavariarum, making it harder to distinguish from Clavulina cinerea. There is an excellent discussion of this problem in Kuo(7). Helminthosphaeria clavariarum parasitizes both species from the base upwards, rendering them gray to black. ''Under a hand lens, the tiny black dots that form the perithecia of the pyrenomycete can be seen'' and under the microscope the differences are obvious. The black dots may be seen on larger digital images. Most Clavulina cinerea fruitbodies, as presented in field guides and on the Internet, ''display grayish to purplish gray (not dark gray or black) colors on the branches and paler surfaces near the base of the mushroom, suggesting that the gray surfaces above do not represent the influence of the parasite, which attacks from the base upward.''. ''However, even if Clavulina cinerea does not (usually) represent parasitization of Clavulina cristata, it may still merely represent a gray and frequently less cristate form or "ecotype" of the latter'', (Kuo(7) with Latin names italicized). See also SIMILAR section of Clavulina rugosa.
