Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on certain resupinate fungi and on Dacrymyces, 2) a fruitbody that is waxy to somewhat gelatinous (or sometimes spreading through a gelatinous host without definite fruiting), 3) ovate basidiospores and obovate or oval conidia borne on the same hyphal system, 4) details of basidial development, 5) thin-walled hyphae with clamp connections, growing internally in the host fungi. "Attention was drawn to the occurrence of two distinct types of hymenial conidia...Perhaps two taxa exist or maybe there are two forms of a single species. Conidia in collections from North America are commonly of the paired, blastic type...those in European collections are of the solitary chlamydospore type...Basidiocarps of European collections appear to be distinctly gelatinous, whereas those from North American are predominantly mucoid, the visible mass being composed mainly of slime and conidia"; Bandoni(9) commented earlier, "In my opinion, the specimens designated as this species in North America do not constitute a single taxon. The basidiospores and basidia are similar in these collections, but the hymenial conidiophores and basidiocarps are of two distinct types.": he goes on to say that specimens from BC include both the sort matching the Bourdot collections and another sort.

Microscopic:
SPORES 5-7(10) x 3.5-4.5(6) microns, ovate, CONIDIUM 5-10(12.4) x 3.3-4.6 microns, obovate or oval; CONIDIOPHORES borne on same hyphal system as basidia; PROBASIDIA 25-60 x 4-6 microns, clavate, becoming transversely 3-septate; hyphae slender, branched, with numerous clamp connections, (Martin), SPORES smooth, inamyloid, colorless, thin-walled, germinating by repetition or by budding; BASIDIA transversely 3-septate at maturity, each basidium "developing one long, tubular, hypha-like sterigma and an asymmetrically attached spore"; without conspicuous probasidia; hyphae colorless, thin-walled, with clamp connections, (Oberwinkler), in the Bourdot type, the conidia are borne singly and terminally, proliferation then occurs though the loop of the clamp, and the fruiting bodies are distinctly gelatinous; in the other sort found in BC, the conidiophores are short, apparently determinate, and each bears two terminal conidia, both the loop of the clamp and the cell that it subtends produce conidia, the conidia when shed bear a minute basal conidiophore remnant, and fruiting bodies are watery or mucenoid and consist largely of conidia and conidiophores, (Bandoni), "characterized by hyphae with conspicuous clamp connections, narrow haustorial branches which are frequently found applied to the hyphae of the host, and conidiophores that produce obovate or oval conidia which measure 3.3-4.6 x 5-9.8(12.4) microns", clamp connections often occurring at the bases of the conidiophores, (Olive)

Notes:
Colacogloea peniophorae has been found in BC and Germany, (Oberwinkler). It has been recorded from BC, WA, OR, ON, PQ, AZ, GA, IA, IL, MN, NC, and TN, (Ginns).

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Helvella silvicola (Beck ex Sacc.) Harmaja
Otidea silvicola Beck
Platygloea peniophorae Bourdot & Galzin
Repetobasidium mirificum var. conicum Oberw.