Summary:
Features include a small, cup-shaped fruitbody with the spore-bearing upper surface reddish orange; the margin scalloped and fringed; the external surface whitish or pale orange with undulating, entangled, downy hairs; absent or short stem; growth among mosses especially Polytrichum; and microscopic characters including broadly elliptic spores ornamented with a more or less continuous colorless reticulum.

Microscopic:
spores 22-25 x 13-15 microns, broadly elliptic, ornamented with a more or less continuous colorless reticulum, containing one or two large oil drops; asci up to 300 x 20 microns; paraphyses slightly clavate, with orange contents that turn green in iodine; hairs thin-walled, septate, colorless, tapering to a rounded tip, (Dennis), spores 20-25 x 12-14 microns, elliptic, at first smooth, becoming sculptured with reticulations that are often interrupted or broken, 1-seriate, obliquely arranged in the ascus, often with the ends overlapping; asci reaching a length of 300-350 microns and width of 20 microns; paraphyses enlarged at tips, where they reach 6 microns wide, filled with orange granules; hairs reaching a length of 300 microns and width of 10-12 microns, colorless, septate, (Seaver), spores 22-27 x 13-15 microns with an incomplete reticulum (illustrated), with one or two droplets; hairs 200-500 x 6-10 microns, septate, pointed, (Hansen)

Notes:
Neottiella rutilans is found in WA, CA, and CO, (Larsen), NH and NY to IA, (Seaver), Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, (Hansen), and the United Kingdom (Dennis). There is a collection from BC deposited by Paul Kroeger at the University of British Columbia.

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Leucoscypha rutilans (Fr.: Fr.) Dennis & Rifai
Thelephora complicata Fr.
Thelephora ramealis Schwein.