Clavulina


Clavulina is a genus of fungus in the family Clavulinaceae, in the Cantharelloid clade. Species are characterized by having extensively branched fruit bodies, white spore prints, and bisterigmate basidia. Branches are cylindrical or flattened, blunt, and pointed or crested at the apex, hyphae with or without clamps, basidia cylindrical to narrowly clavate, mostly with two sterigmata which are large and strongly incurved and spores subspherical or broadly ellipsoid, smooth, and thin-walled, each with one large oil drop or guttule. The genus contains approximately forty-five species with a worldwide distribution, primarily in tropical regions.

Species

Clavulina species are important primary colonizers of forest litter, and occur immediately after the pre-monsoon showers. Two species of Clavulina – C. coralloides and C. rugosa – have been recorded from the moist-deciduous to evergreen forests of the Western Ghats, Kerala, India.