Clavulinopsis sulcata
Clavulinopsis sulcata is a clavarioid fungus in the family Clavariaceae and is the type species of the genus Clavulinopsis. It forms very long, slender, cylindrical pinkish or orange fruiting bodies that grow on the ground among plant litter. A vernacular name that has been used for the species is flame fungus.
Taxonomy
The species was originally described from Java in 1923 by the Dutch mycologist Casper van Overeem, when he made it the type species of the newly circumscribed genus Clavulinopsis.In his influential monograph of the clavarioid fungi, the English mycologist E.J.H. Corner considered Clavulinopsis sulcata to be a synonym of Clavaria miniata, originally described by the English cryptogamist Miles Joseph Berkeley in 1843, from collections made in Uitenhage, South Africa. Berkeley's name is, however, illegitimate since it is a homonym of the earlier and unrelated Clavaria miniata Purton. Corner also considered Clavaria phoenicea, described from Java in 1847 by the Swiss mycologist Heinrich Zollinger, to be a further synonym.
The American mycologist Ronald H. Petersen initially agreed with Corner that Clavaria miniata was the same species. But a study of the type specimen by British mycologist Derek Reid showed that C. miniata had ellipsoid spores and was therefore possibly not synonymous, as later acknowledged by Petersen. Petersen also noted that C. sulcata was part of a complex of related globose-spored species representing collections with apricot-coloured fruit bodies, with C. phoenicea having red-orange fruit bodies, and Clavaria miyabeana blood-red fruit bodies.