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.

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)

Notes:
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.

EDIBILITY

unknown (Scates-Barnhart)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Daedalea mollis Sommerf. Fr.