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Species Information
Summary: Features include minute orange to yellow fruitbodies that branch in an open way 3 or 4 times, the angles lunate, distinct furfuraceous stem a quarter to half of the height, growth on the ground, and microscopic characters including nearly round, slightly roughened spores, and clamp connections. The forma conspicua has stature, size, spores and hyphal construction as in the normal form, stem white or whitish, branches bright orange ("cadmium orange" Ridgway(1) color), tips bright yellow ("orange buff" Ridgway(1) color), contextual hyphae agglutinated but not the hymenial layer. (Petersen(26)).
The University of British Columbia has a collection from BC by C.O. Person and S. Warner. Literature records for the Pacific Northwest are not easy to locate but it occurs at least in ID in the forma conspicua described by R. Petersen. Corner gives a distribution CT, NY, PA, NC, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Japan, and Australia (Corner(2)).
Fruiting body: 0.6-0.8cm across, 1-1.5cm tall, growing separately or in clusters of two to four, with the stems close but not fused; "Plants very delicate, ... stalk distinct, about 1/4 to 1/2 the entire height, minutely furfuraceous, branched in an open way 3 or 4 times, the angles lunate, tips acute, the branches terete", (Coker), to 5cm high, branched, single or two to four together, branches laxly dichotomous two to four times, cylindric, axils lunate, tips acute or blunt, (Corner), 1-3cm, usually several times branched, usually slightly flattened in cross-section, fairly slender, blunt at tip, +/- smooth, (Buczacki)
Flesh: texture "tender, but quite elastic and not brittle", flesh the same color as surface, (Coker), fairly firm, tough, elastic; yellow, (Buczacki)
Branch color: rich chrome-orange or in one form golden yellow, in one collection greenish where bruised; in drying the color becomes more intense, deep red-orange in the orange form, dull ochraceous in the yellow form, (Coker)
Stem: distinct, about 1/4 to 1/3 the entire height, (Coker), up to 1cm long, 1/4 to 1/2 the height of the fruitbody, distinct, minutely furfuraceous, (Corner), 1-3cm, "white downy at base", (Buczacki)
Odor: none (Coker)
Taste: none (Coker), no taste according to Coker and Doty but bad according to Wehm. (Corner)
Microscopic: spores 3-4 x 2-3.5 microns, nearly round, obscurely asperulate, 1 droplet, (Corner), spores from spore deposit 3.0-3.3 x 2.5-2.7 microns, nearly round, white, obscurely asperulate; basidia 4-spored; hymenium about 20 microns thick, hyphae of context 2.5-5.5 microns wide; clamp connections present, (Coker), spores 3-4.5 x 2.5-4 microns, broadly elliptic to nearly round, finely spiny, inamyloid; basidia 4-spored, 18-26 microns; hyphal system monomitic, (Buczacki)
Spore Deposit: white (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
on the ground among grass in the woods (Corner), single or in small groups, trooping +/- tufted; on soil in woodland, also on rotting wood, woody debris, leaf and needle litter and rotting fern fronds; fall, (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Ramariopsis crocea is superficially like a small, delicate, and more brilliantly colored Clavulinopsis corniculata but microscopically it has obscurely asperulate spores that resemble those of Ramariopsis ''kunzei'' more (Corner). Ramariopsis pulchella, according to Coker and according to Corner, may be only a differently colored state of R. crocea.
