The grassland species are often simple in structure belonging in the main to the genus Clavulinopsis (see [p. 170]) and the now much reduced genus Clavaria (see [p. 168]). Although really complex, some of these species of Clavulinopsis are branched only below the soil level and thus appear as single clubs amongst the grass. Perhaps the single club has evolved especially to grow amongst blades of grass. C. corniculata, however, is well branched and the head is tight and compact and often flattened close to the ground. The same fungus in woodland is more open and because of this it was thought to be a different species to the grassland form. It is the simple club which dominates the form of those species which grow on herbaceous debris and grass-stems; indeed several species of Typhula cause diseases of grass particularly those of lawns where they have suffered damage because of cold or long periods under the snow. Some of these small fungi produce a small hard mass of fungal tissue about the size of a lupin seed (called a sclerotium). This is a resting body from which the club-shaped almost filament-like fruit-body later develops.
Thelephora terrestris Fries Earth-fan
Cap: absent. Fruit-body: width 20-40 mm; height 30-50 mm.
Description:
Fruit-body: erect, fan-shaped or effused with upturned margin, tough but thin and fibrous, chocolate-brown or cocoa-coloured, scaly from radiating fibrils and with fringed, pale buff or wine-coloured margin.
Gills: absent and replaced by a wrinkled or irregularly granular, dark lilaceous grey or cocoa-coloured surface.
Flesh: brown and thin.
Spore-print: purplish brown.
Spores: medium sized, dark brown under the microscope, warted-angular and 8-9 × 6-7 µm in size.
Cystidia: absent but basidia often filled with brown contents.