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

Summary:
Ramaria testaceoflava has 1) light chocolate brown to light purplish brown branches (yellow when immature), 2) golden yellow or ochraceous yellow branch tips (especially when young), 3) white stem with white basal tomentum and rhizomorphs, 4) any part of the fruitbody bruising chocolate brown, 5) base flesh turning blue-green in ferric sulphate in water, 6) spores with distinct cyanophilic warts, 7) basidia with cyanophilic granules, and 8) clamp connections.

Collections were examined from WA, OR, ID, CA, NS, Austria, Finland, France, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland, (Petersen). There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia.

Fruiting body:
up to 9cm wide and 14cm high, "usually generally obconic in outline and often somewhat laterally compressed", from single to falsely fasciculate, major branches usually numerous, often laterally flattened, in luxuriant material "usually prolonged, slender, without copious secondary branches and with long internodes" (up to 4cm long), in more compact fruitbodies often gnarled, pronouncedly laterally flattened, subrugose [somewhat wrinkled], axils narrowly round, tips "prolonged and digitate in luxuriant material, but usually coarsely pronged, minutely obtuse", (Petersen), 1.5-7.5cm wide, 5-13cm high, small to medium, (Marr), upper branches +/- parallel and pencil-like, (Scates-Barnhart)

Flesh:
base fleshy-spongy, branches pliable when fresh; brownish white, immediately turning darker when cut, (Marr), homogeneous in single stems, (Petersen)

Branch color:
light chocolate brown to light purplish brown, on bruising changing color to chocolate brown, tips golden yellow to ochraceous yellow, especially when young, within 0.3-0.4cm becoming tan, then concolorous with the branches, (Petersen), immature branches ''maize yellow'', during maturation turning first ''golden yellow'', and finally ''yellowish or reddish brown'', tips retaining a ''maize'' or ''golden yellow'' color or eventually becoming subconcolorous brown, any part of fruitbody quickly bruising ''brown'' or ''slightly reddish brown'' with handling, (Marr), golden yellow when young, aging yellowish brown or reddish brown, tips yellow when young, remaining golden yellow or turning +/- brown, any part of fruitbody bruising quickly red-brown, (Scates-Barnhart)

Stem:
up to 5cm long, up to 3cm thick (usually much more slender and shorter in poor substrates), from clearly single to falsely fasciculate (a fascicle of slender stems covered with a tomentum, "the latter especially pronounced when fruitbodies occurring in deep moss"); "white, off-white to pallid tan", "easily and quickly changing color on bruising or cutting to chocolate brown", (Petersen), 1.5-6cm x 2-6cm, single, or if compound, axes connate giving the appearance of a single stem, cylindric, conic or bulbous; "basally a white tomentum present"; arising from conspicuous white mycelial strands; on upper base "small abortive or primordial branches sometimes diverging", bruising quickly ''brown'' or ''slightly reddish brown'', (Marr), conspicuously covered by white cottony fuzz, arising from conspicuous white mycelial threads, (Scates-Barnhart)

Chemical Reactions:
base flesh turning blue-green in ferric sulphate in water, (Scates-Barnhart), stem flesh inamyloid, (Marr), ferric sulphate in water positive (greenish) with stem flesh, (Exeter)

Odor:
none to mildly pleasant or earthy, (Petersen), not distinctive, or faintly sweet, (Marr)

Taste:
mildly to moderately bitter, sometimes somewhat astringent, (Petersen), slight to distinctly bitter (Marr), bitter (Scates-Barnhart)

Microscopic:
spores 9.5-14 x 4.2-6.4 microns, average 11.76 x 5.14 microns, elliptic, "often adaxially swollen, but occasionally adaxially flattened", rough, "ornamentation of scattered, discrete, low warts, distributed mostly over the median third of the spore surface, and occasionally arranged in vague spirals from upper abaxial to lower adaxial surfaces"; contents heterogeneous, often with a single dark droplet, apiculus "eccentric, with little throat, gradually conical, truncate"; basidia 2-4-spored, 50-65 x 9-11 microns, clavate, clamped, colorless when young, "abruptly golden yellow (under phase contrast) at the time of spore discharge, persistent after spore discharge but collapsed distally", "contents homogeneous when young, almost until full maturity", then abruptly foamy to multiguttulate [with many droplets] at time of spore discharge and then with many small strongly cyanophilic granules; clamp connections present, (Petersen), spores 9-14 x 3.5-6 microns, average 11.5 x 4.6 microns, elliptic, with distinct cyanophilic warts, apiculus usually prominent up to 2 x 1.5 microns; basidia 1-4-spored, mostly 4-spored, 48-80 x 7-11, clavate, soon collapsing after spore discharge, containing numerous cyanophilic granules, (Marr)

Spore Deposit:
"yellow ocher" (Petersen, color from Ridgway), ''golden yellow'' (Marr)