Summary:
Ramaria acrisiccescens has 1) medium to large fruitbodies, usually taller than wide, the mature fruitbodies with nearly parallel very elongated branches, 2) branches that are pale yellowish brown to pale orangish brown, the lower branches turning brownish on bruising, 3) branch tips variously colored: like the branches, pallid, or with a pinkish or purplish cast when young, 4) a stem that is single or somewhat bundled, and white but with the superficial hyphae turning brown, 5) spores that are wide and warted, and 6) hyphae lacking clamp connections. Ramaria acrisiccescens is the only whitish Ramaria in Pacific Northwest without clamp connections (Trudell(4)).

Chemical Reactions:
flesh of stem inamyloid (Marr), ferric sulphate in water negative with stem flesh, (Exeter(3))

Odor:
faintly musty sweet to bean-like, (Marr)

Taste:
not distinctive or slightly acid when fresh, drying with a pronounced bitterish acid taste, (Marr), mild to +/- acrid [peppery] when fresh, cooking or drying with pronounced bitterish-acid taste, (Scates-Barnhart)

Microscopic:
spores 8-14 x 4-6 microns, average 10.1 x 4.9 microns, finely warty, hyphae without clamp connections, (Exeter(1)), spores 8-14 x 4-6 microns, subcylindric to elliptic with prominent lateral apiculus, with distinct, lobed, cyanophilic warts; basidia 1-spored to 4-spored, mostly 4-spored, 40-90 x 7-13 microns, clavate, without basal clamp connection; subhymenial hyphae 2-5 microns wide, interwoven, thin-walled, without clamp connections; context hyphae subparallel to interwoven in stem, parallel in branches, hyphae walls thin to moderately thick, 0.25-2 microns, surface smooth to slightly fluted, non-inflating in the peripheral contextual regions, highly inflated nearer the center (3-24 microns wide), ampulliform swellings near septa 10-20 microns wide, walls of the vesicles moderately to conspicuously ornamented; clamp connections absent; gloeoplerous hyphae abundant in stem, less common in branches, localized bulbous regions enlarging up to 13 microns wide, except for these areas 2.5-5 microns wide, (Marr)

Spore Deposit:
'grayish yellow''

Notes:
R. acrisiccescens is found at least in WA, (Marr). It is a common fall coral in the Pacific Northwest (Ammirati). There are collections from WA, OR, and CA at Oregon State University. There is one collection from BC at the University of British Columbia and it likely to be found in BC regardless of whether the unknown identifier was correct. Siegel(3) says it has been reported from two BC sites.

EDIBILITY

mildly poisonous? (Scates-Barnhart)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Chaetocypha capula (Holmsk. ex Pers.) Kuntze
Cyphella capula (Holmsk. ex Pers.) Fr.