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

Summary:
Features of Ramaria concolor forma concolor include 1) small to medium size, 2) lower branches dull ochraceous to tan, becoming darker when old, 3) upper branches and tips pale tan or ocher-tan, 4) any part of fruitbody bruising brownish with a slight violet tint, 5) often branching from the base, 6) branches normally erect and crowded, (but in forma marrii more open and lax), arising from a mycelial mat on wood with associated white rhizomorphs, 7) spores with ornamentation of inconspicuous low warts or ridges, 8) clamp connections, and 9) two or three types of hyphae in the rhizomorphs. In forma marrii, branches are open, lax, curved ascending (as opposed to erect, often crowded, and neither lax or nor open). In forma fumida (Ontario and New York) stem and lower branches are deep chocolate brown.

Collections of forma concolor were examined from BC, ID, NS, ON, CT, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, NC, NH, NY, OH, PA, TN, VT, and VA, (Petersen). It is common in eastern North America, occasional to rare in Pacific coastal regions from MT westward, and rare in northern Europe, (Petersen).

Fruiting body:
up to 10cm wide, up to 14cm high, major branches several, up to 0.8cm thick, "usually divergent secondarily by the force of the copious branches above, but in one form lax-ascending", "branches numerous, erect, strict to lax and open in one form", axils rounded, often somewhat teardrop-shaped, internodes up to 1.5cm long in lower part, gradually shortening, upper branches and tips erect, rounded in cross-section, strict, often somewhat prolonged, dichotomous to polychotomous, (Petersen), 3-7cm wide, 5-10cm high, habit generally open and branches moderately divaricate, axils obtuse, branches slender and internodes of mature specimens elongated, single or bifid near the tips, tips acute, (Marr)

Flesh:
consistency rubbery when fresh (Marr)

Branch color:
branches dull ochraceous to tan, becoming darker when old, axils in one form [tsugina] green to pallid blue-green, upper branches and tips some shade of pale tan or ocher-tan, but not yellow or greenish yellow, (Petersen), any part of the fruitbody bruising brownish with a slight violet tint, (Marr)

Stem:
"variable, up to 1.2cm thick, often branched almost from the base", often channeled or lobed in cross-section; "in most varieties cinnamon when fresh and young", becoming somewhat violaceous or ruddy when old; "arising from a small, white, tomentose to felty basal mycelial mat", usually quickly becoming involved in a copious tangle of stout (up to 0.25cm thick), "white, ropy rhizomorphic strands permeating the substrate to an indefinite distance", (Petersen), 2cm x 0.6cm, single, slender, or several primary axes arising from the wood, arising from conspicuous rhizomorphic strands and a white spreading mycelial mat, (Marr)

Chemical Reactions:
spore-bearing surface in ferric sulphate in water slowly slate green, yellow-brown to copper-brown in KOH

Odor:
strong, of anise or aromatic, (Petersen), sweet (Marr)

Taste:
mildly bitter to bitter, sometimes mildly acrid [peppery], (Petersen), bitter (Marr)

Microscopic:
spores 7.8-10 x 3.7-4.8 microns, average 8.06 x 4.20 microns, elongate-ovoid to elliptic, adaxially flattened, roughened in profile, ornamentation of very obscure, low warts or ridges, moderately cyanophilic, hardly anastomosing, and ill-defined, without droplets or with one acyanophilic droplet, wall up to 0.3 microns thick, moderately cyanophilic; "hymenium usually unilateral, with sterile areas restricted to narrow lines decurrent from axils"; hyphae of basal mat and rhizomorphic strands of 3 types: generative (2.2-4.5 microns, generally thin-walled, colorless, densely interwoven, conspicuously clamped, inflated clamp connections up to 11 microns broad, thin-walled to slightly thick-walled - wall up to 0.4 microns thick, unornamented), skeletal (1.6-2.6 microns wide, usually less than 2.2 microns wide, straight, thick-walled up to 0.7 microns, colorless, aseptate, arising from clamp connection but ending blindly), and very rare gloeoplerous hyphae (3.4-4.5 microns wide, "thin-walled, with foamy, coscinoidal contents strongly cyanophilous"), (Petersen)