112 Clavarias of the United States and Canada 



pointed to very blunt and thick cusps ; angles open and spreading ; 

 color white at base, pallid cream on the main branches, the upper 

 parts with a slight tint of flesh, with the tips rather abruptly a 

 clear rose-pink in youth, but usually fading completely before ma- 

 turity (in some cases the entire plant at maturity is very pale, al- 

 most white). Flesh delicate and very brittle, but firm and turgid 

 (crisp), colored like the surface in all color forms; taste mild and 

 pleasant, krauty, somewhat like green peanuts or pea hulls, at 

 times faintly bitterish ; odor similar. There are often very small 

 aborted branchlets at the base, and these nearly always retain the 

 pink tip-color, even when it has quite faded elsewhere. In age 

 the color becomes a deeper tan or brownish tan and the tips if 

 bruised or fading slowly turn a deep, dull brick-brown. Whitish 

 forms with tips quite faded cannot easily be distinguished from 

 pale forms of C. flava. 



Spores elliptic, light buff-yellow, minutely rough to almost 

 smooth, usually about 3.8-4.2 x 7.5-lOf/.. Basidia (of B. No. 72) 

 8[a thick, very irregular, 4-spored; hymenium about 30[x thick; 

 threads of flesh roughly parallel, no clamp connections seen. 



An abundant species and one of the most esteemed as an escu- 

 lent. It is more cauliflower-like than most others, the crowded 

 tips, particularly in youth, presenting a series of abrupt terraces. 

 There is great variation in the stoutness of the tips, which are 

 sometimes delicate, sometimes very thick and blunt. 



The rose-tipped plant here described is one of several closely 

 related and variable color forms that might with some reason be 

 considered as one species. We have thought it best to separate the 

 pink-bodied form, after much hesitation, as a species, because of 

 its much deeper-colored spores that average longer. All these 

 forms or nearly related species have the following characters: 

 Flesh turgid, brittle and with a krauty taste and odor; branches 

 usually rugose, arising at the ground from a short, tapering, white 

 root; tips abruptly of a different color in youth, concolorous in 

 age ; the flesh colored like the surface. 



This species has been much confused with C. rufescens, both 

 in this country and in Europe, as is shown by the ambiguous 

 descriptions and antagonistic spore measurements. In 1873 Peck 

 referred a plant with pinkish red tips to C. rufescens (Rept. N. Y. 



