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

Summary:
Ramaria stricta has a small to medium sized fruiting body, compact and bushy with erect branches, the branches light cinnamon to vinaceous ocher, usually bruising darker, the branch tips light yellow to light greenish yellow when fresh. It grows on wood. Spores have obscure low warts or short ridges, and hyphae are dimitic in the basal mat and rhizomorphs.

Collections were examined from BC, WA, OR, ID, and also PQ, CA, MA, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, TN, WI, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (Petersen). There are collections at the University of Washington from WA, AK, and VA, and collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. R. stricta is "common in western North America, occasional to rare in eastern North America, and then often in early summer; common throughout Europe", (Petersen).

Fruiting body:
up to 10cm wide, up to 14cm high, stem either discrete or branched almost from base, repeatedly branched, major branches numerous, up to 0.8cm thick, often channeled or flattened, spreading and then becoming erect, branches erect, flattened, strict, spore-bearing surface "amphigenous or occasionally unilateral, and then with sterile area as decurrent line descending from axil", axils open-acute to narrowly rounded, internodes somewhat long, up to 1cm long in lower part, gradually shortening to 0.2-0.4cm in upper part, tips acute, often prolonged and strict, dichotomous to polychotomous, (Petersen)

Flesh:
leathery, drying brittle; brownish white and darkening when cut (Marr)

Branch color:
branches cinnamon to vinaceous ocher, sometimes variable to "sayal brown" where bruised, or "tawny olive", tips lightly yellow to light greenish yellow, fading to "cream color" or "pinkish buff" when old, bruising bruno-vinescent, (Petersen), mature but not old specimens about ''grayish orange'' in lower one third to two thirds of fruitbody, in the upper part ''light yellow'' to ''pastel yellow'' near the tips, any part of the fruitbody bruising ''light brown'', (Marr, colors from Kornerup(2)), pale yellow becoming pinkish tan to tawny buff, orangish, or sometimes light brown, usually staining slowly brown or vinaceous brown when bruised; tips pale yellow to pale greenish yellow when fresh, (Arora), brownish ocher, red brown when rubbed, (Courtecuisse), color grades upward "from a whitish base to reddish tan lower branches to pale yellowish upper branches", and fruitbody stains brownish overall, (Trudell)

Stem:
either discrete, and then up to 1.5cm wide, or branched almost from the base so as to appear stemless, often covered with white, felty-tomentose basal mycelium up to 1cm from base, dull ochraceous to dull brownish, and somewhat plushy, bruising bruno-vinescent; arising either directly from a usually copious tangle of white rhizomorphic strands up to 0.2cm wide, "or from a white basal tomentum of indeterminate size which disappears into a tangle of white rhizomorphic strands", (Petersen), single and distinct, 0.2-2cm x 0.3-0.5cm, indistinct and broader, 0.3-1.5cm, or branching from substrate, (Marr), rudimentary or practically absent, not well developed, (Arora)

Chemical Reactions:
stem flesh inamyloid, (Marr), spore-bearing surface in ferric sulphate in water slate green; in KOH copper, dull orange or brownish, and sections leach yellow pigment into liquid, (Petersen)

Odor:
sweet, often pungent, of anise, (Petersen), often faintly sweetish (Arora), slightly resembling anise (Marr), spicy (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), slightly garlic to radish-like (Miller)

Taste:
bitter, styptic, or mildly astringent-bitter, (Petersen), often somewhat metallic or bitter (Arora), peppery (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), bitter (Miller)

Microscopic:
spores 7.5-10.0(10.5) x (3.5)4.0-5.0 microns, average 8.42 x 4.23 microns, narrowly ovoid to subelliptic, roughened, ornamentation of very obscure, low, moderately cyanophilic, scattered, hardly anastomosing warts or ridges, contents with no droplets to several droplets, weakly cyanophilic with the droplets acyanophilic, wall up to 0.3 microns thick, moderately cyanophilic, apiculus prominent, eccentric, truncate, thin-walled, and moderately cyanophilic; hyphae of basal mat and rhizomorphic strands dimitic: 1) generative hyphae 2.2-3.8 microns wide, thin-walled, with conspicuous clamp connections, densely interwoven, colorless, inflated clamp connections common, inflated up to 13 microns broad, often slightly thick-walled, and 2) skeletal hyphae 1.3-2.2 microns wide, "thick-walled, the wall usually filling the cell lumen except near its origin", colorless, aseptate, common to abundant through basal tomentum and rhizomorphic strands, (Petersen), spores 7-10 x 3.5-5.5 microns, elliptic, minutely roughened, (Arora), spores with minute shallow cyanophilic warts; basidia mostly 4-spored, 40-58 x 7-9 microns, clavate, clamped, at least some basidia with cyanophilic granular content, (Marr)

Spore Deposit:
cinnamon-buff to yellowish (Arora)