Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: {See also Hericium Table.} Hericium coralloides consists of tufts of whitish teeth evenly distributed along branches arising from a repeatedly branching base, and sometimes in small tufts at branch tips, growing on hardwood. Arora discusses nomenclatural intricacies in this genus, and the approach of Ginns(5) from 1993 is used here, in which H. ramosum as referred to by Arora is called H. coralloides (Scop.: Fr.) Pers. and H. coralloides, as the hardwood lover similar to H. abietis with pure white color when fresh, slightly longer spines up to 4cm, and slightly larger spores is called H. americanum Ginns.
There are collections from BC and AB at the University of British Columbia labeled Hericium ramosum, but some collections identified as H. coralloides from the west may be H. abietis. Desjardin(6)* records it from CA.
Cap: fruiting body 8-35cm broad and 6-15cm high, consisting of an open framework of rather delicate, spine-laden branches arising from repeatedly branching base; white when fresh, discoloring creamy to buff or yellowish tan when old, (Arora), fruiting body 15cm or more wide, consisting of rebranching delicate branches; white or cream when fresh, becoming buffy brown to clay color in the herbarium, (Hall)
Flesh: white (Arora), soft, homogeneous; white to cream, (Hall)
Teeth: 0.3-1cm long or up to 2.5cm long in tufts, "more or less evenly distributed in lines along the branches (like teeth on a comb), sometimes also in small tufts at the branch tips", (Arora), 0.1-0.6cm long, slender, awl-shaped, round in cross-section, "more or less uniformly distributed on the undersides of the branches"; white, (Hall)
Stem: tough base or "trunk" gives rise to repeated branches, (Arora), short, tough, imbedded in wood (Hall)
Microscopic: "spores 3-5 x 3-4 microns, nearly round, smooth or minutely roughened, amyloid", (Arora), spores 4-4.7 x 2.7-3.3 microns, nearly round to elliptic, amyloid, not cyanophilous, 1 droplet; basidia 4-spored, 20-35 x 5.3-6 microns, clavate; cystidia 45-53.3 x 6-7.3 microns, "extending into the spine trama and lying parallel with the hyphae", cylindric, thin-walled, with or without knob on tip; hyphae 3.3-20 microns wide, colorless, thin-walled, clamp connections present, (Hall), spores 3.5-5 x 2.8-4 microns (Hallenberg)
Spore Deposit: white (Arora, Hall)
Habitat / Range
on hardwoods (Acer, Alnus, Betula, Carya, Fagus, Fraxinus, Populus, Quercus, Salix, Ulmus), reports on Picea need to be rechecked because they may be H. abietis, (Ginns), single or in small groups on fallen hardwood branches, logs, and stumps, (Arora), Hall records var. caput-ursi on rotting conifer wood (Hall)
Hall(1) (as H. ramosum), Arora(1)*, Phillips(1)* (as H. ramosum), Lincoff(2)* (as H. ramosum), Schalkwijk-Barendsen(1)* (as H. ramosum), McKnight(1)* (as H. ramosum), Ginns(5), Desjardin(6)*, Siegel(2)*, Marrone(1)*, Hallenberg(6) References for the fungi
