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Species Information
Summary: Also listed in Clubs category. Multiclavula mucida produces gregarious, small, spindle-shaped to cylindric, whitish to pale yellowish waxy fruiting bodies that often age salmon to brick-red, on rotten logs that are covered with green algae. Corner(3) comments that structurally it is an unbranched Lentaria, but its association with algae appears to be with the phycophilous species of Clavulinopsis which Petersen placed in Multiclavula. It was found in Oregon by Doty according to Corner(2) as var. rosea (white below, rose in the middle, pale rose at the apex), although he says var. rosea is possibly a form of Clavulinopsis vernalis, and Petersen(27) synonymizes the variety with Multiclavula corynoides.
Brodo(1) say that it is "an eastern to boreal species". Multiclavula mucida is widely distributed but uncommon in the USA, Canada, Panama, Columbia, Sweden, France, Russia (Siberia), Japan, and Australia, (Corner(2)). It has been found in Jamaica (Corner(3), who synonymizes Multiclavula coronilla (G.W. Martin) R.H. Petersen and Clavaria alba Lloyd with Lentaria mucida (Fr.) Corner). It is found in CA (Arora), and northern North America, especially in Northeast, (Lincoff). It is included in "Mushrooms of Idaho and the Pacific Northwest" by Tylutki(1) with a description that fits well for the species. The University of British Columbia has one collection determined by Paul Kroeger as Multiclavula mucida from BC.
Fruiting body: 0.5-1.5cm high, 0.1-0.15cm wide, simple or rarely forked, cylindric to spindle-shaped, narrowing toward base; white to sometimes yellowish or cream, (Lincoff), 0.5-1.5cm high, 0.1-0.2cm wide, cylindric or tapered; white to creamy, buff, or yellowish, but often aging salmon to brick-red; smooth, (Arora), 0.3-2cm high, 0.1cm thick, slender, mostly simple, but sometimes forked into 2-6 linear curved ascending branches, or incised or minutely cristate (crested) at the top, "solid, acute, rarely clavate-obtuse, cylindric fusiform, attenuate into a scarcely distinct stem"; delicate but tough, not breaking on bending, waxy-tough; (Corner(2)), spindle-shaped to cylindric or tine-like, usually unbranched; smooth or longitudinally wrinkled, (Bessette)
Flesh: tough, waxy, pliant; white, (Arora), delicate but tough, not breaking on bending, waxy-tough, (Corner(2))
Branch color: "white, yellowish, pale cream, or even pinkish, the apex sometimes becoming lateritious, brownish or blackish", (Corner(2)), white to creamy white or pale yellow, (Bessette)
Stem: indistinct, (Lincoff), narrowing into a scarcely distinct stem, (Corner(2))
Odor: none (Corner(2)), not distinctive (Miller)
Taste: woody (Lincoff, Corner(2)), not distinctive (Miller)
Microscopic: spores 4.5-7.5 x 1.8-3 microns, narrowly elliptic, smooth, colorless, (Lincoff), spores 4.5-7.5 x 1.8-3 microns, narrowly elliptic or oblong elliptic, either without drops or with 1-2 drops; basidia 4-spored, 15-21 x 4-5 microns; cystidia none; hymenium extending over tip of the fruiting body; hyphae "3-6 microns wide, often dilated to 8 microns at the septa, scarcely inflated, clamped", "with few or no interweaving hyphae", (Corner(2)), "spores 5-7 x 2-3 microns; basidia 18-25 x 5.5-7 microns; hyphae 2-6 microns wide, the superficial, non-agglutinated stem hyphae 1-2 microns wide; mycelial hyphae round the algal cells 1.5-3 microns wide, with slightly thickened walls", (Corner(3)), spores 4.5-7.5 x 2-3 microns, oblong to elliptic, smooth; cystidia absent, (Arora)
Spore Deposit: white (Arora)
Habitat / Range
in groups but not clusters on wet algae-covered wood or occasionally on soil, (Arora), on rotting wood, usually covered with green algae, sometimes also on algae-covered soil, (Lincoff), gregarious, often in large colonies, not bundled, on rotten wood, associated with a film of Chlorococcoid algae (in Corner(3) he corrects this to Coccomyxa) on the surface of the wood, in USA often on Nyssa, (Corner(2)), most often fruiting in late summer and fall (Miller)
Similar Species
Other Multiclavula species may be sparsely branched (see Clubs category). See also SIMILAR section of Lentaria epichnoa.
