Spruce Feather

Appearance

Color: white to creamy brown. Fructification made up of hairy-hispid bundles of dense vertical branches, fine and tender. They arise from a more or less common trunk which is divided into branches, they become finer and ramify in their turn; pointed, simple or forked extremities; ocher-brown base at first, whitish at top, lilac-brown in old age.
Characterized by an unpleasant smell.

Naming

Common Names Sparrenveertje, Sparreveertje, Barrmattsvamp, Weißliche Borstenkoralle

Distribution

Eurasian.

Habitat

In coniferous and mixed forests, most often among needles or on dead wood.

Reproduction

Spores oval to elliptical, smooth, hyaline, guttulate, 5-6 x 2.5-3.5 µm. Basidia tightly clavate, tetrasporic, curly. No cystidia. Generating hyphae (1) thin-walled, wide, septate, curly. (2) thick-walled and broad skeletal.