Ramaria suecica (Fr.) Donk
no common name
Gomphaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
no common name
Gomphaceae
Species account author: Ian Gibson.
Extracted from Matchmaker: Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.
Introduction to the Macrofungi
Photograph
Species Information
Summary:
Features of Ramaria suecica include 1) generally vertical spindle-shaped outline with a few erect major branches, 2) branches that are somewhat flattened, palmate, and pallid ocher to pink ocher, 3) branch tips white when young to pallid ocher when mature, 4) soft flesh, 5) stem up to 2cm long, but often branched from the base, arising from a small mycelial mat and ill-defined white rhizomorphic strands, 6) faintly spicy to fragrant odor, 7) mildly peppery to mildly bitter taste, 8) spores with cyanophilic ornamentation of coarse meandering ridges and scattered warts, 9) clamp connections, and 10) monomitic hyphae in rhizomorphs.
Chemical Reactions:
KOH on spore-bearing surface orange, weak brown or deep yellow, ferric sulphate on spore-bearing surface slowly deep slate green; rhizomorphs when dried turning pale lemon yellow in 2% KOH, (Petersen)
Odor:
faintly spicy to fragrant (Petersen)
Taste:
mildly acrid [peppery] to mildly bitter (Petersen)
Microscopic:
spores 8.1-10.4 x 3.7-5.2 microns, average 9.03 x 4.26 microns, "narrowly rhomboidal to cylindric, usually tapering asymmetrically toward the apiculus and often tapering asymmetrically abaxially, roughened in profile", "ornamentation of coarse, cyanophilous meandering ridges and scattered warts or papillate of coarse warts only", contents homogeneous to minutely sludgy, wall up to 0.4 microns thick, somewhat thinner distally, apiculus "gradual, large, broad, but not prominent"; basidia 4-spored, 45-70 x 7.6-8.7 microns, clavate, clamped, contents homogeneous; hyphae of rhizomorphic strands 1.5-3.7 microns wide, thin-walled, colorless, "conspicuously and copiously clamped, usually somewhat rigid and straight, but often easily collapsed, usually encrusted with crystalline material", inflated clamp connections "up to 15 microns broad, broadly ovoid to onion-shaped, somewhat thick-walled (wall up to 0.8 microns thick) especially over and in juxtaposition to septum, unornamented to very rarely and sparsely ornamented"; hyphae of upper branch trama 3.0-7.5 microns wide, "thin-walled, loosely interwoven to rather straight and then rather femur-shaped from large clamps", (Petersen)
Notes:
Collections were examined from WA, AK, Austria, United Kingdom (Scotland), USSR, Nepal, and New Zealand, (Corner(3)). Collections were examined from BC, ID, AB, AK, MN, NC, NH, NY, TN, Finland, Netherlands, and Switzerland. It has been found in OR, (Castellano). Distribution is from the Appalachian Mountains westward to Pacific Coastal areas from BC to northern CA, as well as northern Europe, (Petersen).
EDIBILITY
inedible (Scates-Barnhart)
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Ramaria rainierensis is more slender and has rhizomorphic strands with inflated clamp connections that are conspicuously ornamented (1250x), and both skeletalized generative and skeletal hyphae are present in the rhizomorphic strands whereas in R. suecica skeletalized generative hyphae are absent from the rhizomorphic strands and their inflated clamp connections are not ornamented - spores of R. rainierensis are also slightly wider, (Petersen). Ramaria gracilis has smaller spores and dimitic rhizomorphal strands that have generative, skeletal, and skeletalized generative hyphae, (Petersen).Habitat
on humus and leaf mold (usually coniferous but sometimes hardwood); August to December, (Petersen)
Status Information
Synonyms
Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Thelephora salicina Fr.