E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Ramaria botrytis var. botrytis has its stem and lower branches whitish, with stains yellowish to light brown. The tips and a short distance down branches are colored reddish to purplish. The stem is single and massive with the branch pattern cauliflower-like (dense terminal branching on a few thick lower branches). Stem flesh is weakly amyloid. Spores are striate and clamp connections are present.

It is found at least in WA, (Marr), from New England to North Carolina, west to southern CA and BC (var unspecified), (Lincoff(2)), and Europe and North Africa, (Courtecuisse). There is a collection from BC (var unspecified) by O. Ceska at the University of British Columbia.

Fruiting body:
4-12cm wide, 7-12cm high, (one collection 19cm x 19cm), nearly as broad as tall, single stem, lower branches usually few, upper branch system short, about 1-1.5cm long, and densely clustered on lower branches, but sometimes elongating up to 10cm, branching 5-7 times, polychotomous, axils acute to U-shaped, slightly divergent, branches generally slender, 0.1-1.5cm wide, pluridigitate near tips, tips subacute to rounded or nodulose, (Marr)

Flesh:
fleshy-fibrous to punky-firm when fresh, (Marr), white (Lincoff(2))

Branch color:
white, with reddish or purplish tips, (Lincoff(2)), tips and a short distance down branches grayish magenta, when young pale red to light lilac, branches much paler; sometimes bruising yellow or tannish, (Scates-Barnhart), lower branches opaque white with stains or bruises varying from ''pastel yellow'' to ''light brown'', upper branches a shade or two lighter than ''flesh color'' and with a faint violaceous tint, tips and a short distance downward ''reddish white'' to ''grayish ruby or magenta'', (Marr(1) who also refer to the "the orange, reddish or purplish colored terminal branches" as one of the distinctive features of R. botrytis, the colors in single quotes being from Kornerup(2))

Stem:
2-5cm x 2-3cm, single, cylindric or conic, massive, occasional abortive or primordial branches; opaque white with stains or bruises varying from ''pastel yellow'' to ''light brown'', (Marr),

Chemical Reactions:
stem flesh weakly amyloid, reaction frequently requiring 30 minutes or more, (Marr), stem flesh negative with ferric sulphate in water (Exeter)

Odor:
faintly sweet (Marr)

Taste:
not distinctive (Marr)

Microscopic:
spores 11-17 x 4-6 microns, average 13.8 x 4.7 microns, subcylindric, mummy-shaped, or occasionally sigmoid, striate ornamentation steeply spiraled to nearly longitudinal, both striae and general wall cyanophilic; basidia mostly 4-spored (occasionally 2-spored), 59-82 x 8-11 microns, clavate, clamped; hyphae with clamp connections, (Marr)

Spore Deposit:
ocher to pale orange (Lincoff(2)), light orange-brown (Miller)