Coral Tooth | Hericium coralloides

Description

This delicately beautiful Hericium sp. fruits naturally from dead hardwood logs and stumps, sometimes in huge patches that can be seen from quite some distance. It is recognized by its short (mostly about 1 cm long) spines, and the fact that the spines hang in rows along delicate branches. Under the microscope it features very small, amyloid spores.

[ from mushroomexpert.com ]

Ecology: Saprobic and possibly parasitic; growing alone or gregariously on fallen hardwood branches and stumps; late summer and fall, or over winter and in spring in warmer climates; apparently widely distributed in North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota.

Fruiting Body: 8–20 cm across; consisting of branches arising from a more or less central core that is attached to the wood; branches 0.5–1 cm thick, smooth, adorned with fleshy spines; spines 0.5–1 cm long, up to 1 mm wide, white when fresh, becoming faintly yellowish to brownish in old age.

Flesh: White; not changing when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 3–4 x 2.5–3.5 µm; globose; smooth or minutely roughened; hyaline and uniguttulate in KOH; amyloid. Basidia 16–20 x 3–4 µm; subclavate; 4-sterigmate. Gloeoplerous hyphae present, sometimes extending into hymenium to become cystidia (up to 40 x 5 µm, cylindric with knobbed apices, smooth, thin-walled).