Summary:
Features include 1) resupinate growth on dead branches and litter, 2) a fruitbody that is relatively thick, mucoid-gelatinous, grayish or colorless, and covered with a thin, white, felty layer, 3) colorless spores that are oblong-elliptic or subcylindric, 4) basidia that are 1-3-septate, with epibasidia (sterigmata) up to 20 microns long, and 5) hyphae that are 8-10 microns wide, without clamp connections, producing erect branches, flexuous [wavy] and distinguished by irregular thickenings.
Helicogloea vestita has been found at least in BC and IA, (Ginns), as well as France, England, and Denmark, (Raitviir). Bandoni(10) notes that the Iowa specimen has smaller basidia, 30-50 x 5-6.5 microns, and spores mostly 18-21 x 5-7 microns, germinating by repetition. Bandoni(9) comments that 2 collections from BC fit the Bourdot and Galzin description but do not appear conspecific with an Iowa collection by Martin.
Fruiting body:
"mucoid-gelatinous, effused, thick"; grayish or colorless, almost invisible when dry, clothed with a thin white felty layer, (Bandoni(10)), "effused in small patches; fairly thick, mucogelatinous or sometimes waxy-gelatinous, greyish hyaline, leaving no trace when dry", (Pearson), widely procumbent, up to 5cm wide, thick, mucous-gelatinous; grayish or colorless, covered with a thin white tomentose layer, (Raitviir)
Microscopic:
SPORES 15-21-30 x 5-7.5-9 microns, oblong-elliptic or subcylindric, obliquely attenuate [narrowing] at the base and laterally depressed; PROBASIDIA "at first ovoid, then cylindrical, becoming 1-3-septate", basidia 40-50 x 9-10 microns, curved, epibasidia at first conic, becoming slender, up to 20 microns long; hyphae 8-10 microns wide, "without clamp-connections, producing erect branches, flexuous and distinguished by irregular thickenings", 60-100 x 6-10 microns, projecting above the surface 40-50 microns, (Bandoni(10)), SPORES 15-30 x 5-9 microns, mostly about 22 x 6 microns, "sublanceolate, depressed on one side, rounded at top"; BASIDIA 40-50 x 6-10 microns, at first obovate, then cylindric-clavate, basidia 1-3-septate, with conic epibasidia up to 20 microns long, (Pearson), SPORES 16-21 x 5-7 microns, oblong-elliptic or almost cylindric, flattened on one side, colorless; BASIDIA 2-4-cellular, 40-50 x 9-10 microns, cylindric, bent; HYPHAE 8-10 microns wide, without clamp connections, sinuously branched, projecting 40-50 microns beyond the fruitbody surface, (Raitviir)
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