Details about map content are available here Click on the map dots to view record details.
Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a whitish to brownish or grayish fruitbody with flattened, tough-leathery, more or less erect, pale-tipped branches, 2) a tough stem up to half the height of fruitbody, 3) growth on the ground, and 4) microscopic characters including basidia that are partially septate longitudinally at their tips.
There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. It has been reported from WA (N. Siegel and D. Miller pers. comm.), and is fairly common along the Pacific Coast according to Trudell(4). It is fairly common in coastal CA according to Arora(1). There are also reports from NC, NY, PA, Bermuda, Finland, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, China, and Japan, (Corner(2)), and Bolivia, Brazil, and Borneo, (Corner(3)).
Fruiting body: 0.5-4cm across, 2-7(10)cm high, "rather sparsely branched from a tough base" or sometimes scarcely branched, the branches usually somewhat flattened (especially the lower ones), erect (upright vertical), tough, (Arora), 6.5cm high, with flattened branching (apparently in one plane, though actually, by twisting, in several planes), the lower branches palmately divided, the upper narrow and dichotomous ("branches 3-5-chotomous, or more below, dichotomous and slightly flattened distally, numerous and bushy or rather few and lax, often irregular"); hymenium apparently covering the whole fruitbody except the tips, (Corner(2))
Flesh: tough; white, not staining, (Arora), tough, subcoriaceous [somewhat leathery], especially in stem, (Corner(2))
Branch color: "whitish to buff, brownish, or grayish, sometimes with a purple or pinkish tinge (caused by a parasite?)", "tips often paler and brighter (whiter) when actively growing", (Arora), pale buff-straw, gray or drab tinged yellow, gray tinged brown, or pale ferruginous, tips white, (Corner(2))
Stem: well developed, usually a third to a half the height of the fruitbody; "colored like branches or paler, often with a coat of mycelial down", (Arora), up to 2cm long and 0.13-0.32cm wide, distinct or not, often divided from the base into the main palmate branches, (Corner(2))
Odor: none (Corner(2))
Taste: none (Corner(2))
Microscopic: spores 13-20 x 4.5-6.5 microns, elongate-elliptic or spindle-shaped, smooth; many or all of the basidia "appearing partially septate (partitioned) longitudinally at their apices", (Arora), spores (12)14-20(24) x (4)5-7(9) microns, elongate elliptic, subfusoid or subcylindric, "blunt or subacute, attenuate to the oblique apiculus", smooth, "granular-vacuolate or minutely guttulate"; basidia according to Bourdot & Galzin dimorphic, 1) 50-90 x 8-10 microns, with 2-3-4, mostly 4, normal sterigmata 7.5-10 microns long, 2) 30-60 x 13-18 microns, sub-Tremellaceous, 2-4-lobed at apex with each lobe prolonged into a stout sterigma up to 18 x 3 microns and often septate about the middle, but Corner examined a collection with only one kind of basidia, 70-110 x 12.5-14 with 2-4 sterigmata 6-10 x 4-5 microns, the basidia "normally clavate until the emergence of the stout sterigmata caused them to become depressed at the apex and to appear shortly longitudinally (but incompletely) septate"; cystidia none; hymenium thickening to 200 microns, hyphae 2-5 microns wide, "cylindric, not inflated, walls slightly thickened, long-celled", clamped at every septum according to Corner for Clavaria gigaspora, occasionally clamped according to Bourdot & Galzin, or without clamp connections according to Coker, (Corner(2)), spores 12-20 x 5-9 microns, generally elliptic to somewhat spindle-shaped or almond-shaped, borne on basidia that are divided lengthwise, at least near their tips, (Trudell)
Spore Deposit: white (Arora)
Habitat / Range
single or in groups on ground in woods or clearings, (Arora), single, gregarious, or cespitose [in tufts], on the ground in the forest, "or among grass, moss, or on bare soil in the open", (Corner(2)), late summer to fall (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Lentaria byssiseda ''is a rather similar whitish to pinkish-tan species that often grows on wood, has less flattened branches, "normal" basidia, and white mycelial threads at the base of the stalk'', (Arora, who discusses its occurrence in California). Tremellodendron species have not been confirmed from the Pacific Northwest - they can be similar but have longitudinally partitioned basidia as well as a typically subgelatinous hymenium with branching hyphidia, lacking cystidia and without clamp connections; the fruitbodies are erect, subfleshy to leathery, and occasionally club-shaped but usually branching freely, and they are extremely variable in habit of growth, color, and size, (Bodman).
