Indiana, H.I. Miller; West Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, McIlvaine.
A common edible species in Europe. Common in United States.
The writer has eaten it for many years. It is not always tender. It should be young, fresh, and the branches alone cooked. It requires slow, patient cooking if at all old. It does dry well, as stated by some writers, but it does not wet well again.
Clavaria cinerea.
Two-thirds natural size.
C. cine´rea Bull.—cinis, ashes. (Plate [CXL].) Height 1–3 in., gregarious or tufted, sometimes in rows. Gray. Stem either thin or thick, short, lighter than branches. Branches very numerous compressed, wrinkled, irregular, somewhat obtuse or flattened and divided into slender points.
Its gray color easily distinguishes it from others. It is variable in its mode of growth and in its shape.
On ground in woods. Common. June to frost.
Eatable, but injurious in quantities. Cordier. Edible, but provokes indigestion in delicate stomachs. Leuba.