Typhula juncea
Description
Macrotyphula juncea is a super skinny club fungus found decomposing forest litter across North America. It reaches heights of about 8 centimeters but is usually only about 1 millimeter thick. Other distinguishing features include the copious rhizomorphs at the base of the stem, extending into the substrate, and the whitish to pale yellowish surface. This diminutive coral fungus fruits only in dark, moist places, a favorite habitat, duff in the shade of redwood, (Sequoia sempervirens).
Common names: Slender Club Fungus.
Mushroom Identification
Sporocarp
Fruiting body a slender, erect, strand, 3-8 cm tall, 0.5-1.5 mm thick, subpliant, stuffed at maturity, straight to curved, the tip obtuse; upper half to two-thirds, fertile, not well differentiated from the sterile base; surface of fertile region more or less glabrous, cream-buff to pale ochraceous-brown, the sterile portion slightly darker, sparsely villose, the base is usually swollen and conspicuously pubescent; context thin, colored like the surface; odor and taste mild.
Spores
Spores 6.0-8.0 x 3.5-5.5 µm, broadly ellipsoid in face-view, tear-shaped in side-view, smooth, hilar appendage conspicuous; spore print white.
Habitat
In groups on conifer and hardwood duff, common on fallen branchlets of redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), also on leaves of tanbark oak and live oak (Lithocarpus densiflora and Quercus agrifolia); fruiting from late fall to mid-winter.
Similar Species
Typhula species are similar but arise from a grain-like sclerotium. An Ascomycete, Xylaria hypoxylon, bears a resemblance, but grows on decaying wood, not duff, and is colored differently, the base blackish, the slender apex powdery-white from asexual spores.
Typhula pharcorrhiza has much larger spores and its fruit bodies arise from disc-like sclerotia on the surfaces of dead leaves.
History
Some club-like and coral-like fungi are ascomycetous, but fungi of Typhula and related genera belong to the Basidiomycota.
Slender Club was first described scientifically in 1805 by German mycologist Johannes Baptista von Albertini (1769-1831) and German-Americal Lewis David de Schweinitz (1780-1834) who gave it the scientific name Clavaria triuncialis var. juncea.
The currently-accepted scientific name Typhula juncea dates from an 1882 publication by Finnish mycologist Petter Adolf Karsten.
Synonyms of Typhula juncea include Typhula ramentacea Fr., Clavaria juncea (Alb. & Schwein.) Fr., Clavaria hortulana Velen., Clavaria pilipes, Clavariadelphus junceus (Alb. & Schwein.) Corner, Typhula oleae Maire, and Macrotyphula juncea (Alb. & Schwein.) Berthier.
The generic name Typhula is Latin and means slightly smokey. The specific epithet juncea means rush-like.
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: kueda (Public Domain)
Photo 2 - Author: alex_wentworth (CC BY 4.0)
Photo 3 - Author: chloe_and_trevor (CC BY 4.0)
