Alloclavaria purpurea (Alloclavaria purpurea)
Systematics:- Department: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
- Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
- Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
- Subclass: Incertae sedis (undefined)
- Order: Hymenochaetales
- Family: Rickenellaceae (Rickenelles)
- Genus: Alloclavaria (Alloclavaria)
- Species: Alloclavaria purpurea (Alloclavaria purpurea)
Synonyms :
Clavaria purple
- Clavaria purpurea
- Clavaria purpurea
Description
Fruit body : narrow and long. From 2.5 to 10 centimeters in height, up to 14 is indicated as the maximum. A width of 2-6 millimeters. Cylindrical to nearly spindle-shaped, usually with a slightly pointed tip. Unbranched. Sometimes somewhat flattened or, as it were, "with a groove", it can be longitudinally furrowed. Dry, soft, brittle. The color can be dull purple to purplish brown, fading with age to light ocher. Other possible shades are described as: "isabella colors" - creamy brownish at the break; "Clay color", at the base as "army brown" - "army brown". Shaggy at the base, with a whitish "down". Fruiting bodies usually grow in bundles, sometimes quite dense, up to 20 pieces in one bundle-cluster.
Some sources describe the leg separately: poorly developed, lighter.
Flesh : whitish, purple, thin.
Smell and taste : almost indistinguishable. The smell is described as "soft, pleasant".
Chemical reactions: absent (negative) or not described.
Spore powder : White.
Spores 8.5-12 x 4-4.5 μm, ellipsoidal, smooth, flowing. Basidia 4 spore. Cystidia up to 130 x 10 microns, cylindrical, thin-walled. Clamping connections are missing.
Ecology : Traditionally considered saprobiotic, there is speculation that it is mycorrhizal or associated with mosses. Grows in densely packed clusters under conifers (pine, spruce), often in mosses. summer and autumn (also in winter in warmer climates)
Season and distribution
Summer and autumn (also in winter in warmer climates). Widespread in North America. Finds were recorded in Scandinavia, China, as well as in the temperate forests of the Russian Federation and European countries.
Edibility
Unknown. The fungus is not poisonous, at least no data on toxicity can be found. Some sources even come across some recipes and recommendations for cooking, but the reviews are so indistinct that it is completely incomprehensible what kind of mushroom they actually tried to cook there, it seems that it was not that it was not Clavaria purple, it was actually something- then, as they say, "not from this series," that is, not a horned, not clavulina, not clavaria.
Similar species
Alloclavaria purpurea is considered such an easily identifiable fungus that it is difficult to confuse it with anything else. We probably won't need to use a microscope or DNA sequencer to successfully identify a fungus. Clavaria zollingeri and Clavulina amethyst are vaguely similar, but their coral fruiting bodies are at least moderately branched (and often branched quite strongly), and they also appear in deciduous forests, and Alloclavaria purpurea loves conifers.
At the microscopic level, the fungus is easily and confidently identified by the presence of cystidia, which are absent in closely related species in Clavaria, Clavulina, and Clavulinopsis.
Photo: Natalia Chukavova