Summary:
Features of Ramaria distinctissima var. americana include 1) medium size, with outline ovate, 2) branches pinkish flesh-colored to salmon, 3) tips bright orange when young and fresh, fading when old to the same color as the upper branches, 4) yellow to golden yellow lower branches and upper stem, 5) base white and tomentose, 6) long spores that have scattered warts and meandering ridges, and 7) clamp connections. The description is derived from Petersen(2) except where noted.
Collections were examined from BC and ID (Petersen(2)).
Fruiting body:
up to 9cm wide and 14cm high, ovate in outline, major branches 2-5, more or less circular in outline, branches in 3-6 ranks, round in cross-section, ascending, often somewhat divergent, internodes diminishing gradually when mature, axils narrowly rounded to acute, rounded in upper part, tips irregularly branched to crested when young, short-digitate at maturity
Flesh:
under spore-bearing surface pastel orange, paler to white inwards; in stem solid, white, moist but not slippery
Branch color:
pinkish flesh-colored to salmon, tips bright orange when young and fresh, fading when old to the same color as the upper branches, (Petersen), flesh-pink to salmon, tips bright orange when young and fresh, fading to same color as upper branches when old, lower branches bright yellow, (Exeter)
Stem:
up to 4cm x 2.5cm, narrowing downward to bluntly acute or obconic base, without abortive branchlets; white in lower part, above that becoming bright yellow to golden yellow, fading when old to flat yellow; tomentose at base, smooth above, (Petersen), included by Petersen in key to species exhibiting yellow color band on upper stem, (Exeter)
Chemical Reactions:
ferric chloride in water positive reaction, probably with branch sections, (Petersen), ferric sulphate in water negative on stem flesh, stem flesh inamyloid, (Exeter)
Taste:
negligible
Microscopic:
spores 12.6-16.3 x 4.8-6.3(7.0) microns, average 13.7 x 5.3 microns, elliptic to subboletoid, often flattened adaxially, conspicuously roughened in profile, scattered prominent cyanophilous warts and short meandering ridges, 1 to several droplets, the droplets amorphous, dark yellow, and semi-refringent, spore wall up to 0.3 microns thick, hilar appendix not very prominent; basidia (3-)4-spored, 60-70 x 10-13 microns, broadly clavate, clamped, contents homogeneous when young, with scattered refringent guttules at maturity; clamp connections often on tramal hyphae of upper branches, and usually not on tramal hyphae of stem
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