About this fungus
Ivory Coral is a fungus in the Clavariaceae family. Its habitat and field characteristics are summarised below.
A delicate white coral fungus forming dense clusters of slender upright branches with mostly blunt tips.
What to check
Look for repeated fine branching, white to cream flesh, blunt or rounded branch tips, and a white spore print. It has no cap, gills, pores, ring or volva. Specialist identification may require microscopic spores; an iron-salt reaction is reported as negative, not green.
Variation
Young fruit bodies are white, becoming cream or faintly yellowish with age. Branch density and overall size vary, and old tips may discolor.
Lookalikes
Clavulina coralloides has distinctly crested or fringed tips. Tremellodendropsis pallida is tougher and more cartilaginous. Ramariopsis robusta and other pale Ramariopsis species can be very close, while some unrelated coral fungi cause gastrointestinal illness, so colour alone is not enough.
Habitat and range
Probably saprotrophic, growing on soil, litter or occasionally very well-decayed wood in woodland and other mossy or grassy habitats. Its ecology is not completely resolved.
Food safety
Edibility is uncertain or disputed.
Species to compare
Similar mushrooms to compare against: