Summary:
Ramaria stricta has a small to medium sized fruiting body, compact and bushy with erect branches, the branches light cinnamon to vinaceous ocher, usually bruising darker, the branch tips light yellow to light greenish yellow when fresh. It grows on wood. Spores have obscure low warts or short ridges, and hyphae are dimitic in the basal mat and rhizomorphs.

Chemical Reactions:
stem flesh inamyloid, (Marr), spore-bearing surface in ferric sulphate in water slate green; in KOH copper, dull orange or brownish, and sections leach yellow pigment into liquid, (Petersen)

Odor:
sweet, often pungent, of anise, (Petersen), often faintly sweetish (Arora), slightly resembling anise (Marr), spicy (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), slightly garlic to radish-like (Miller)

Taste:
bitter, styptic, or mildly astringent-bitter, (Petersen), often somewhat metallic or bitter (Arora), peppery (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), bitter (Miller)

Microscopic:
spores 7.5-10.0(10.5) x (3.5)4.0-5.0 microns, average 8.42 x 4.23 microns, narrowly ovoid to subelliptic, roughened, ornamentation of very obscure, low, moderately cyanophilic, scattered, hardly anastomosing warts or ridges, contents with no droplets to several droplets, weakly cyanophilic with the droplets acyanophilic, wall up to 0.3 microns thick, moderately cyanophilic, apiculus prominent, eccentric, truncate, thin-walled, and moderately cyanophilic; hyphae of basal mat and rhizomorphic strands dimitic: 1) generative hyphae 2.2-3.8 microns wide, thin-walled, with conspicuous clamp connections, densely interwoven, colorless, inflated clamp connections common, inflated up to 13 microns broad, often slightly thick-walled, and 2) skeletal hyphae 1.3-2.2 microns wide, "thick-walled, the wall usually filling the cell lumen except near its origin", colorless, aseptate, common to abundant through basal tomentum and rhizomorphic strands, (Petersen), spores 7-10 x 3.5-5.5 microns, elliptic, minutely roughened, (Arora), spores with minute shallow cyanophilic warts; basidia mostly 4-spored, 40-58 x 7-9 microns, clavate, clamped, at least some basidia with cyanophilic granular content, (Marr)

Spore Deposit:
cinnamon-buff to yellowish (Arora)

Notes:
Collections were examined from BC, WA, OR, ID, and also PQ, CA, MA, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, TN, WI, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (Petersen). There are collections at the University of Washington from WA, AK, and VA, and collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. R. stricta is "common in western North America, occasional to rare in eastern North America, and then often in early summer; common throughout Europe", (Petersen).

EDIBILITY

inedible (little flesh and flavor not pleasing), (Arora), edible but a little tough (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)