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.

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)

Notes:
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).

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Helicobasidium purpureum Pat.
Protonema brebissonii Desm.
Ramaria stricta var. concolor Corner