Clavulinopsis laeticolor
Clavulinopsis laeticolor, commonly known as the golden fairy club or handsome club, is a clavarioid fungus in the family Clavariaceae. It forms slender, cylindrical, yellow fruit bodies that grow on the ground in woodland litter or in agriculturally unimproved grassland.
Taxonomy
The species was originally described from Cuba in 1868 by British mycologist Miles Joseph Berkeley and his American collaborator and fellow clergyman Moses Ashley Curtis. In 1965, it was placed in the genus Clavulinopsis by American mycologist Ron Petersen. English mycologist E. J. H. Corner treated the species under the name Clavulinopsis pulchra, a taxon originally described from the United States and part of the C. laeticolor complex.The species complex is as yet unresolved.
Description
The fruit body is cylindrical to narrowly clavate, up to by 10 mm, lemon yellow to deep yellow, with an indistinct stem, white at the base. Microscopically, the basidiospores are hyaline, ellipsoid, 4.5 to 7 by 3.5 to 5 μm, with a large, eccentric apiculus.Similar species
In Europe, Clavulinopsis helvola is a very similar species in the same habitat and best distinguished microscopically by its spiny spores. Clavulinopsis luteoalba is also similar, though typically a more orange-yellow. Clavulinopsis fusiformis is similarly coloured, but fruit bodies are normally larger and appear in dense, fasciculate clusters.Distribution and habitat
Clavulinopsis laeticolor was initially described from Cuba. In its wide sense, as part of a complex of similar species, it has been reported from North America, Europe, Malaya, China, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Central and South America.The species occurs singly or in small clusters on the ground and is presumed to be saprotrophic. In America and Asia it grows in woodland, but in Europe it generally occurs in agriculturally unimproved, short-sward grassland. Such waxcap grasslands are a declining and threatened habitat, but C. laeticolor is one of the commoner species and is not generally considered of conservation concern.