North Island: WKR, under Big Kauri Tree, 23.vii.81, coll. RHP & Ann Hawthorne, no. 42295 (holotype, PDD; isotype, TENN); WR, Mill Bay, 6.vii.81, coll. EH, no. 1063 (ZT).

Fruit bodies up to 10 cm high, up to 4 mm thick, simple clubs, gregarious to densely cespitose in groups of up to 30 individuals, arising from individual or common white mycelial patches, very brittle. Club equal to tapering slightly upward, pale ivory to very pale yellow ("light buff", "cartridge-buff", "ivory-yellow"), opaque, appearing waxy. Stipe equal or tapering downward slightly, concolourous with club, poorly delimited when fresh, although somewhat silky in appearance. Taste and odour negligible. Macrochemical reaction: FCL = negative.
Tramal hyphae significantly inflated, hyaline, thin-walled, clampless, of long cells; secondary septa occasional. Subhymenium well developed, pseudoparenchymatous. Hymenium thickening, lightly agglutinated; basidia 80-100 x 7-9 µm, clavate, clamped; contents homogeneous when young, granular to multiguttulate when mature; sterigmata 4, stout, straight.
Spores 8.3-9.4x6.8-8.6 µm (E = 1.05-1.20; E^m = 1.10; L^m = 8.64 µm), subglobose, thin-walled, smooth; contents uniguttulate when mature; hilar appendix prominent, papillate.

On soil under kauri (Agathis australis).

Receptacula ad 100 x 4 mm, simplicia, gregaria vel caespitosa, fragila, pallide flavida. Hyphis efibulatis; basidiis fibulatis. Sporis laevis, subglobosis, ut m oratione infra.

Macroscopically, this appears very much like Clavaria vermicularis of the North Temperate Zone. Clumps were found growing with C. ardosiaca under a large kauri tree.
I have not been able to examine the type specimen of Clavaria gibbsiae var. tenuis (f. tennis) Corner, but Corner's description fits this taxon closely. Because the type specimen of C. gibbsiae is spiny-spored, I cannot consider var. tenuis to be conspecific with it (although careful examination of the type of var. tenuis may also reveal spiny spores). An elevation of the varietal epithet would result in a homonym of C. tenuis Schweinitz, and I am reluctant to use the type specimen of var. tenuis to represent the collections cited in "Specimens Examined", so I have proposed a new species with Corner's variety as a synonym.