Clavulinopsis laeticolor (Berkeley & Curtis) Petersen
Golden fairy club
This North American native is easy to miss, despite its bright coloring.
Identification: Fruiting bodies are usually separate (no common base), cylindrical but sometimes thicker near the top, sometimes partially flattened or twisted, with tips that are usually rounded. They are yellow-orange to orange, and ¾–1¾″ tall ⨉ 1/32–⅛″ (2–5 cm ⨉ 1.5–3 mm) in diameter. They taste mild. They appear under hardwoods or conifers.
Edibility: Unknown; too small to be worth harvesting.
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Similar species. |
Online References:
8/26/2018 · Henry E. Cowdrey Nature Center, Lunenburg, Massachusetts · ≈ 4 × 4½″ (10 × 11 cm) 
8/26/2018 · Henry E. Cowdrey Nature Center, Lunenburg, Massachusetts · ≈ 4 × 5″ (10 × 13 cm) 
8/11/2021 · Skolfield Shores Preserve, Harpswell, Maine · ≈ 2½ × 2½″ (7.3 × 6.5 cm) 
8/12/2017 · Bates Land and Blackman Land, Groton Conservation Trust, Groton, Massachusetts · ≈ 1¾ × 1½″ (5 × 4.1 cm) 
ID is uncertain 
7/14/2013 · Ball Hill Trail, Leominster State Forest, Leominster, Massachusetts · ≈ 3½ × 3½″ (9.3 × 9.3 cm) 
8/12/2017 · Bates Land and Blackman Land, Groton Conservation Trust, Groton, Massachusetts · ≈ 1¾ × 1½″ (5 × 4.2 cm) ID is uncertain 
8/12/2017 · Bates Land and Blackman Land, Groton Conservation Trust, Groton, Massachusetts · ≈ 2½ × 2″ (6.3 × 5.4 cm) ID is uncertain 
10/10/2021 · Witt’s End Trail, Norway, Maine · ≈ 6 × 4½″ (16 × 11 cm) 
8/12/2017 · Bates Land and Blackman Land, Groton Conservation Trust, Groton, Massachusetts · ≈ 3 × 2½″ (8.3 × 7.3 cm) ID is uncertain 
7/14/2013 · Ball Hill Trail, Leominster State Forest, Leominster, Massachusetts · ≈ 3½ × 3″ (9.4 × 8.4 cm) 
| Roughly 75 people in North America are poisoned each year by mushrooms, often from eating a poisonous species that resembles an edible species. Though deaths are rare, there is no cure short of a liver transplant for severe poisoning. Don’t eat any mushroom unless you are absolutely certain of its identity! Please don’t trust the identifications on this site. We aren’t mushroom experts and we haven’t focused on safely identifying edible species. |
Clavulinopsis laeticolor description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.
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