Summary:
Ramaria cystidiophora var. anisata differs from other varieties of R. cystidiophora by salmon and yellow color pattern (branches pallid salmon, tips light clear yellow when young but fading slightly by maturity), and a strong spicy-anise odor The description is derived from Petersen(2) except where otherwise noted.
It has been found in Mendocino County in CA (Petersen), and Benton and Lane Counties in OR (Exeter). There is a collection from BC by O. Ceska at the University of British Columbia (variety specified).
Fruiting body:
up to 6cm across and up to 11cm high, obpyriform [reverse pear-shaped], major branches two to several, ascending, often slightly grooved, branches in 3-5 ranks, more or less circular in cross-section, internodes diminishing gradually when mature, axils narrowly rounded to acute, tips irregularly cristate [crested] when young, extending somewhat and becoming dichotomous-divaricate by maturity
Flesh:
in branches stringy, white internally but colored like surface near the surface; in stem off-white, moist but not slippery
Branch color:
pallid salmon, opaque, often flushed ruddy when old, tips light clear yellow when young, fading slightly by maturity
Stem:
up to 5cm long and 1.6cm wide, single (often falsely fasciculate), slender, narrowing gradually downward, sometimes with a few abortive branchlets, rooting, often geniculate [knee-shaped] or gnarled below ground level; hoary white, weakly watery-brunnescent [turning brown] when handled
Chemical Reactions:
IKI gives purple-green reaction on stem flesh; ferric chloride in water positive reaction, probably with branch sections, (Peterson), 2 Oregon collections recorded as stem flesh non-amyloid and stem flesh negative to ferric sulphate in water, (Exeter)
Taste:
negligible
Microscopic:
spores 7.6-8.6 x 3.2-3.9 microns, average 8.20 x 3.66 microns, cylindric to narrowly elliptic, roughened in profile, with scattered small flat warts, sometimes arranged in oblique rows, contents of dense amorphous dark yellow inclusions, wall up to 0.2 microns thick, apiculus indistinct, thick; basidia 4-spored, 55-65 x 7-8 microns, narrowly clavate, clamped, contents multigranular and/or multiguttulate, especially proximally, moderately cyanophilic; stem flesh of the following three types: 1) generative hyphae 4-16 microns wide, inflated especially in inner stem, colorless, clamped, thick-walled (up to 0.5 microns), more or less parallel, free, ampulliform clamps up to 20 microns wide, asymmetrical, irregularly shaped to aliiform, not unusually thick-walled, with delicate, local stalactitiform ornamentation, 2) gloeoplerous hyphae 1.5-3.5 microns wide, meandering, yellow-refringent, more common in inner stem, and 3) superficial turf hyphae resembling dendrohyphidia, arising from a clamp connection, more or less perpendicular to stem surface, aseptate, subrefringent, subdiverticulate (with sharp spines or narrow branches up to 11 microns long arising randomly), ending in an acerose tip
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