Calocera viscosa

Names

Calocera viscosa Common Name: Yellow Stagshorn (other scientific names include Clavaria viscosa, Calocera flammea, Calocera cavarae, Calocera viscosa var. cavarae - NB this latter is an unpigmented form, otherwise not distinct)

Description

The distinctive bright yellow, branching structures of this species are familiar to all of us and can often be found in conifer woodlands almost throughout the year. It appears to be well suited to winter fruiting as it is known that the fruit body can become frozen solid, then thaw out and still continue to produce spores.

Similar species

Perhaps less well known are two other smaller species from the genus, Calocera cornea (Small Stagshorn) and C. furcata (Yellow Buckshorn). Whereas C. viscosa can reach up to 10cm in height and is repeated dichotomously branched, these other species rarely grow beyond 2 cm and they are unbranched, or almost so. Given their habitat preferences - C. cornea mostly on broadleaved wood and C. furcata exclusively on conifer wood - these two species are easy to pick out and to distinguish from C. viscosa. To be absolutely sure you should really check the spores (C. cornea all less than 11 microns long and with 0-1 septa; C. furcata with some spores up to 13 microns long and with 1-3 septa developing with spore maturity) but hopefully you will start to become aware of these different bright yellow wood rotting species. C. furcata is rarely recorded in the UK with most of the known records from Scotland so do keep your eyes open in conifer woods for small, almost unbranched stagshorn fungi.

Calocera viscosa (Yellow Stagshorn) on softwood

Habitat

Calocera is a genus of wood rotting species. C. viscosa fruits on coniferous wood, often on large sections of fallen pine wood and is equally at home in coniferous plantations and native conifer woodland. In the UK, C. cornea is almost always found on broadleaved wood, particularly oak and beech whilst C. furcata is another conifer specialist and grows well on pine and fir.

Distribution

The Checklist gives the distribution of C. viscosa and C. cornea as ‘common’ throughout with nearly 4500 and 3000 records respectively from the UK. C. furcata is mostly known from Scotland but the distribution is far from clear. For this latter species, there are 44 records on the FRDBI of which 30 are Scottish. As with the common species featured in December (Clitocybe nebularis) there are still a lot of gaps on the NBN map in Scotland and particularly so for C. furcata.

Photos of similar species

Calocera furcata (Yellow Buckshorn) on pine