Summary: Clavulinopsis corniculata has 1) yellow to deep ocher fruitbodies that are usually repeatedly branched, often with incurved crescent-like tips at the ends of the branches, narrowing at the base which is white and somewhat rooting, 2) farinaceous odor, and 3) round or nearly round smooth spores.
Chemical Reactions: spore-bearing surface gray-green in FeSO4 (Petersen(4))
Odor: farinaceous to oily-farinaceous (Petersen), mild or farinaceous (Arora)
Taste: farinaceous to oily-farinaceous (Petersen), mild or bitter (Arora)
Microscopic: spores 4.3-7.2 x 4.3-7.2 microns, round or nearly round, smooth, slightly thick-walled, with one droplet (rarely multiguttulate), apiculus long and prominent; basidia 4-spored, rarely 2-spored, 40-80 x 3.5-7.5 microns, clavate to elongate-clavate, multiguttulate, the droplets yellowish microscopically, sterigmata 4-9 microns long, slightly incurved; subhymenial hyphae 1.5-3.5 microns wide, tortuous, with clamp connections, watery yellow microscopically, producing basidia in clusters; context hyphae 3.5-10 microns wide, generally parallel, scarcely inflated, colorless, with clamp connections throughout, (Petersen(4))
Spore Deposit: white (Petersen(4))
Notes: Collections were examined from BC, WA, NF, ON, PQ, CA, IA, MI, NC, NH, PA, SC, TN, VA, Jamaica, Panama, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, France, Sweden, United Kingdom, and India, (Petersen(4)). A collection was examined from ID (Petersen(16)). It was reported from OR by Zeller, (Petersen(4)).
EDIBILITY
edible (Phillips)
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Calocera species usually have a viscid fruitbody, and they have Y-shaped basidia, (Arora). Ramariopsis crocea is superficially like a small, delicate, and more brilliantly colored Clavulinopsis corniculata but microscopically it has obscurely asperulate spores that resemble those of Ramariopsis ''kunzei'' more (Corner). See also SIMILAR section of Calocera viscosa.
Habitat
scattered to gregarious, "usually in moist lowland areas with herbaceous or deciduous woody plants", (Petersen(4)), single, scattered, or in groups "on ground or dead wood in forests and at their edges, in grassy areas, etc.", (Arora), fall (Buczacki)