Upright Coral Fungus

Appearance

The color of the fruit body is light yellow brown to paler toward extremities, the tips are light yellow; bruising light reddish brown. The basidiocarp has a leathery texture when fresh, but becomes brittle when dry.

The stipe is branched up to 8 times, and the branches are all upright and nearly parallel. The branches ending in 4 to 5 thornlike tips. Overall, the fruit body appears bushy, and is medium-sized, up to 10 by 7 cm.

The stipe is single or branching from the base; with white mycelium and rhizomorphs radiating from the base. The odor is of anise. The taste is bitter. The fruit bodies are "edible but unpalatable."

The spore print is dark yellow. Spores are roughly elliptical, dotted with low cyanophilous warts, and measure 7–10 by 3.5–5.5 μm. The basidia have basal clamps are mostly four-spored, and sometimes have cyanophilous granular contents.

Naming

Another widespread and common coral, ''R. apiculata'', typically grows on conifer wood, and bruises brown like ''R. stricta'', but it has green pigmentation.

''R. apiculata'' is a dull buff-tan to dull orange-brown, and young fruit bodies often have white branch tips. ''R. gracilis'' prefers conifer wood, and has lighter colors than ''R. stricta''. The tropical ''R. moelleriana'' can only be reliably distinguished from ''R. sticta'' by location and microscopic characteristics.

''R. flava'' is mycorrhizal, and grows under coniferous and deciduous trees. Its fruit bodies are typically taller, have a more unpleasant odor, and a less bitter taste.

Distribution

''Ramaria stricta'' has a cosmopolitan distribution, and is a fairly common species. The fungus is lignicolous, common in late summer and fall in coniferous forests of the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountains.

Habitat

The fungus grows on dead wood, stumps, trunks, and branches of both leafy and coniferous trees. The form that grows on deciduous wood tends to be more orange and less bushy than those which grow on coniferous wood. Fruit bodies can form in "log lines" where decaying wood is buried underground near the surface, or is in an advanced state of decomposition.