Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) whitish branches, rarely tinged flesh color, erect or spreading, smooth and not crested at tips, 2) fragile flesh, 3) stem finely hairy or tomentose, sometimes absent, 4) growth under trees or in pastures or occasionally on wood, and 5) broadly elliptic to minutely spiny spores usually on 4-spored basidia. Siegel(2) say "We know that the California species is distinct from the European one, and it will be given a name soon."
Ramariopsis ''kunzei'' is "widely distributed in northeastern North America and from the Pacific Northwest to southern California", (Lincoff). It is rather common, found in North America, Europe, and Japan, (Corner(2)). It is also found in Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Colombia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and New Zealand, (Corner(3)). It has been reported from WA by Andrew Parker, pers. comm., BC (Kroeger(3)), and CA (Arora).
Fruiting body: 3-8cm wide, 2.5-10cm high, "erect or somewhat spreading, profusely branched", branches smooth, not usually compact, tips blunt or acute, (Arora), 2-12cm high, much branched or with few branches, branches in large specimens 0.2-0.5cm wide and 3-5-chotomous in lower part, becoming narrow (0.05-0.2cm wide) and dichotomous in upper part, erect, outcurving round the sides of the fruitbody, fastigiate [having parallel, massed, upright branches], "crowded or loose, generally cylindric, sometimes flattened, axils rounded and narrow", in small specimens slender and repeatedly dichotomous, sometimes with great regularity, tips acute or blunt, never cristate, (Corner(2))
Flesh: fragile; white, (Arora), rather pliant and elastic, varying more or less brittle, (Corner(2))
Branch color: white to creamy white, often tinged pinkish when old, (Arora), snow white, ivory white, or cream white, rarely tinged pink or flesh color, (Corner(2))
Stem: "absent or present only as a short, fragile, sometimes hairy base", (Arora); 0.5-2.5cm x 0.25-0.6cm, sometimes absent but generally distinct; sometimes becoming yellow or pink at the base; stem and bases of main branches shortly villoso-tomentose, (Corner(2))
Chemical Reactions: dried tissue darkens characteristically in KOH
Odor: none or slight, (Corner(2))
Taste: mild (Arora), none or slight (Corner(2))
Microscopic: spores 3-5.5 x 2.5-4.5 microns, broadly elliptic to round, minutely spiny; basidia 4-spored, (Arora), spores 3-5.5 x 2.3-4.5 microns, broadly elliptic to nearly round, minutely echinulate, verruculose or merely asperulate, the spines up to 0.5 microns long and acute, or shorter and blunt, the wall slightly thickened, one droplet, small apiculus; basidia 4-spored, rarely 2-spored, 25-40 x 5-6 microns, clavate, sterigmata 4-4.5 microns long; cystidia none; hymenium 30-40 microns thick at first, gradually thickening to 100 microns, absent from trunk and upper villous sides of the main branches, "subhymenium well-developed, composed of narrow, 2-3 microns wide, closely interwoven hyphae, not inflating"; hyphae monomitic, 3-10 microns wide, 40-320 microns long, thin-walled, smooth, with clamp connections; in the tomentum on stem hyphae 2-4 microns wide, loosely interwoven, with smooth thin walls and clamp connections, (Corner(2))
Spore Deposit: white (Arora)
Habitat / Range
scattered to densely gregarious "on ground in mixed woods and under conifers, frequently hidden in the duff"; in redwood forests late fall, winter, early spring, (Arora), single, gregarious, or cespitose [in tufts], in woods and pastures, mostly terrestrial, occasionally on decayed wood, (Corner(2)), late summer to fall, (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Clavulina coralloides is less profusely branched and often has toothed branched tips, and has smooth spores on 2-spored basidia, (Arora). See also SIMILAR section of Ramaria gracilis.
