Club-shaped or oblong, rose-pink hardly differentiated from the similarly coloured stem, and arising at most from a small pad of filaments.
Spore-print: white.
Spores: broadly ellipsoid to pip-shaped, smooth, hyaline under the microscope, about 10 × 6 µm (8-11 × 5-7 µm) in size and not becoming bluish grey in iodine solutions.
Cystidia: absent.
Habitat & Distribution: Not uncommon on dead herbaceous stems and leaves, especially those in damp places.
Illustrations: T. erythropus WD 10510. P. micans WD 1057.
General notes on the club-fungi
Early mycologists believed that the club-shaped nature of the fruit-body was important in the classification of these fungi. Thus the Earth Tongues (Geoglossum, see [Plate 57]), the Stag’s horn fungi and relatives (Xylosphaera see [p. 204]), both Ascomycete groups, the Dacrymycetales (a group of jelly-fungi, see [p. 180]) and the true fairy-clubs were all classified together. It was the ‘Father of Mycology’, the Swede, Elias Fries, who in 1821, as in many other groups of fungi, made an attempt to make some sense of the chaos. By very careful observations, and what is so amazing without using a microscope, he was able to separate the tough stemmed and gelatinous stemmed groups from the more slender or coral-like ones. Fries was a very keen observer and noticed features which many modern authorities miss in the field because they rely too heavily on the microscope. Fries’ system was used almost unchanged until the second half of this century; its beauty was its simplicity in that it joined together in one group all those fungi with simple basidia and the spore-bearing tissue distributed all around a simple club or around the branches of a complex fruit-body resembling a coral. However, by a careful examination of the microscopic structures, such as the spores and hyphae and the development of the fruit-body, it has been found necessary to separate these fungi still further. The ecology of the club-fungi has assisted in an understanding of these proposed divisions.
The larger many branched clavarias, more correctly placed in the genus Ramaria, are to be found on bare soil in woodlands and plantations; R. ochraceo-virens is common in conifer plantations and can be recognised by the long ornamented spores, which characterise this group of fungi, and the fact that the sandy-coloured fruit-body becomes dark olive-green on bruising (see [p. 170]).
Clavariadelphus pistillaris is the largest of our simple club-fungi; it may grow up to 200 mm high and 50 mm wide. This fungus has a wrinkled outer surface and sometimes the apex of the club becomes flattened and lacks basidia; this suggests a possible relationship, perhaps evolutionary, to the primitive chanterelles (see [p. 162])—also woodland fungi. Clavulina, a complex group of dull or whitish, branched fruit-bodies, has been described earlier and the genus is characterised by the large spores and 2-spored basidia; they are woodland fungi also.