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

Summary:
Ramaria thiersii has medium-sized fruitbodies. It often develops beneath the soil and then is very pale, but if exposed to sun during development branches are yellow. Where rubbed or bruised, it becomes brown weakly or strongly. Stem flesh is inamyloid. It fruits in spring. Spores are long with small, discrete, low warts.

R. thiersii has been found in ID and CA (Petersen(3)). One collection from OR at Oregon State University is labeled as this species and there is another collection from BC at the University of British Columbia.

Fruiting body:
up to 8cm wide and 15cm high, obpyramidal [like an upside down pyramid] to somewhat cylindric in outline, usually under litter layer in gritty soil, major branches 3-5, ascending to flaring, often split and splintered, hardly round in cross-section, branches in 4-6 ranks, round in cross-section, erect to flaring, often grooved, internodes diminishing upward gradually at maturity, axils rounded, often split below, tips digitate to molar-like when young, coarsely digitate when mature, (Petersen)

Flesh:
in branches soft, stringy, white when developing underground, salmon-colored in exposed fruitbodies; in stem soft to spongy, often grub-ridden, white, not mottled, (Petersen, who however on p.134 says branch flesh is pure white)

Branch color:
major branches white to pale yellow, branches white to pallid yellow, tips white where protected, pallid greenish yellow where exposed ("cream buff" "straw yellow", "colonial buff", "Naples yellow" (Ridgway(1) colors), 4A2, 5A2-4 (Kornerup 1967 colors)), in the description of Ramaria rubricarnata var. pallida, it is noted that in Ramaria thiersii "all parts show conspicuous brunnescence where handled or rubbed", (Petersen), white to pale yellow overall, tips white where protected, pallid greenish yellow or straw-yellow where exposed, (Scates-Barnhart)

Stem:
up to 7cm long and up to 6cm wide, obpyramidal, narrowing downward to narrowly rounded base, often subgeniculate [somewhat knee-like]; white, weakly to strongly brunnescent where rubbed or bruised; smooth; without abortive branchlets or stumps, (Petersen), base usually single, +/- massive, tapering downward to a narrow rounded bottom, (Scates-Barnhart)

Chemical Reactions:
IKI negative on stem flesh (inamyloid), KOH causes spore-bearing surface to darken; ferric chloride in water positive reaction, probably with branch sections, (Petersen), stem flesh negative with ferric sulphate in water (Exeter)

Odor:
negligible (Petersen)

Taste:
negligible (Petersen)

Microscopic:
spores 11.6-15.8 x 4.0-5.0 microns, average 13.28 x 4.24 microns, cylindric to narrowly elliptic, occasionally somewhat S-shaped, obscurely roughened in profile, ornamentation of small discrete low warts, 1-2 droplets that are yellow-refringent, wall up to 0.2 microns thick; basidia 4-spored, 45-50 x 7-8 microns, clavate, clamped, contents granular to minutely multiguttulate, sterigmata stout, straight, and subcoronate [somewhat crowned]; clamp connections present, (Petersen)