''Clavaria fumosa'', commonly known as the smoky clavaria or smoky spindles, is a species of

coral fungus The clavarioid fungi are a group of fungi in the ''Basidiomycota'' typically having erect, simple or branched basidiocarps (fruit bodies) that are formed on the ground, on decaying vegetation, or on dead wood. They are colloquially called club fun ...

in the family

Clavariaceae The Clavariaceae are a family of fungi in the order Agaricales. Originally the family contained most of the clavarioid fungi (club and coral fungi), but in its current sense is more restricted, albeit with a greater diversity of basidiocarp (frui ...

. It was originally described by

Christian Hendrik Persoon Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1 February 1761 – 16 November 1836) was a German mycologist who made additions to Linnaeus' mushroom taxonomy. Early life Persoon was born in South Africa at the Cape of Good Hope, the third child of an imm ...

in 1795.

Description

''Clavaria fumosa'' has a fruiting body which is in height and in width. These bodies are to a greater or lesser extent cylindrical, taper at the base and are normally unbranched, they are infrequently flattened or have grooves and are usually smooth. They can be dry or moist are normally rather brittle with a blunt tip the tip. The colour can be greyish, off-white, dirty yellowish, or dirty pinkish, although they are paler at the base while the tip becomes darker reddish brown or even black as it ages. The flesh is the same colour as the exterior and does not have a distinct odour or taste while the spores are white.

Distribution

''Clavaria fumosa'' is a common species in Britain and Ireland and is also widely distributed mainland Europe and also from North America.

Habitat and biology

''Clavaria fumosa'' is a

saprobic Saprotrophic nutrition or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of decayed (dead or waste) organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi (f ...

fungus which grows on the soil among unimproved grassland and in leaf litter along the edges of woodland, it is less common in dense woodland. This species is normally found in clusters and solitary specimens are rare. In Britain and Ireland the fruiting bodies appear from June to November.

Edibility

''Clavaria fumosa'' is said to be edible, but as a relatively scarce and small species then their collection for culinary uses is not thought to be worthwhile. Others consider it to be inedible.

Etymology

The generic name is derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''clava'' meaning "club" while the

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''fumosa'' means "smoky".

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q5129580 Clavariaceae Fungi described in 1795 Fungi of Europe Fungi of North America