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Species Information
Summary: Features of Thelephora palmata include 1) multiple branching from a common base, 2) more or less erect, flattened, tough branches that are purplish brown to chocolate brown or darker, the tips whitish when actively growing, 3) short stem, 4) garlic to unpleasant-fetid odor, 5) growth under trees and along paths, and 6) elliptic-angular spiny spores.
Distribution includes WA, PE, PQ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, IA, IL, MO, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, and PA, (Ginns), OR (Zeller), and BC (in Redhead). There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. It is widespread and fairly common in North America, Europe, and Asia, (Trudell).
Fruiting body: up to 10cm or more wide, 2-10cm high, usually profusely branched from common base, flattened branches, tips also flattened (palm-like), (Arora), in tufts up to 5cm wide, up to 10cm high, clavarioid, cespitose, with flattened, palmatifid, multifid, or dichotomous branching, branches very numerous, dilating 0.4-1.2cm, wide in the lower axils, subfastigiate [somewhat bundled], often connate [joined by growth], becoming ligulate [strap-like] or cylindric 0.1-0.2cm wide; spore-bearing surface amphigenous, surface smooth, (Corner)
Branch color: purplish brown to chocolate brown or darker, tips usually paler (whitish) when still actively growing, (Arora), white when young, then fuscous purple, chocolate brown to blackish brown, often with a violet tinge, (Corner)
Stem: present only as a common base or short "trunk" below the branches'', (Arora), up to 1.5cm long and 0.4cm wide, irregular, soon dividing, (Corner), carrot-shaped (narrowing downward), sometimes very short but can be up to 6cm long and up to 3cm wide, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Chemical Reactions: trama is deeply cyanescent in KOH, the hymenium not cyanescent in KOH (Corner(4))
Odor: garlic-like, becoming fetid (unpleasant) when old, (Arora), strong, fetid, particularly on drying, commonly without odor when fresh, (Corner), fetid, of rotting cabbage or garlic, disappears when drying, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen)
Microscopic: spores 8-11 x 7-8 microns, elliptic-angular, spiny, (Arora), spores 8-12 x 7-9 microns, angular-lobate, echinulate [finely spiny] with spines 0.5-1.5 microns long, fuscous purple, 1-2 droplets; basidia 2-4-spored, 70-100 x 9-12 microns, sterigmata 7-12 microns long; hymenium amphigenous, often sterile on the upper side of oblique branches; cystidia none; hyphae 3-9 microns wide, with clamp connections, thin-walled in the branches, becoming thick-walled (up to 1 micron) in the stem, colorless or pale brown, often secondarily septate; trama deeply cyanescent in KOH, the hymenium not cyanescent, (Corner)
Spore Deposit: dark reddish brown, (Arora), purple-brown (Buczacki)
Habitat / Range
moist ground in coniferous woods, also in grassy fields, (Ginns), single or in groups on moist ground in woods and at their edges, often along woodland paths, late fall, winter, or spring, (Arora, for California), on the ground in coniferous woods, (Corner), August to November, later in California, (Phillips)
Similar Species
Thelephora terrestris is more frilly and flower-like and has very little odor (Trudell). Thelephora anthocephala 1) has a mild odor in the type variety (but may be foetid in var. americana), 2) its trama is not cyanescent in KOH, and 3) there are morphological features that are difficult to describe (see Bessette(2) p.425 and less directly Corner(4)). See also SIMILAR section of Thelephora caespitulans.
