North Island: WKR, Big Kauri Tree Track to Te Matua Ngahere, 23.vi.81, coll. RHP, no. 43697 (holotype, PDD; isotype, TENN).

Fruit bodies up to 6 cm high, up to 3 mm thick, simple clubs, scattered to gregarious but not cespitose, arising from small white mycelial patches, shining snow-white all over. Club opaque, appearing waxy, equal to tapering somewhat upward; apex narrowly rounded. Stipe silky-shiny, equal to tapering slightly downward; odour and taste negligible.
Tramal hyphae significantly inflated, of barrel-shaped cells often disarticulating in squash mounts, thin-walled, hyaline, clampless; secondary septa rare; gloeoplerous hyphae not observed. Subhymenium poorly developed. Basidia 40-45 µm long, broadly clavate, clampless, (2)-4-sterigmate; contents multiguttulate when mature.
Spores 6.5-7.2 x 5.8-6.6 µm (E = 1.06-1.13; E^m = 1.11; L^m = 6.95 µm), subglobose, thin-walled, smooth to echinulate; contents uniguttulate at maturity; hilar appendix prominent, papillate.

Receptacula simplicia, gregaria, ad 60 x 3 mm, alba; basidiis et hyphis efibulatis; sporis echinulatis, ut in oratione infra.

Corner's (1970) latest summary key to the taxa of Clavaria includes two taxa with spiny spores in subg. Clavaria, both producing dark fruit bodies (C. atrofusca Vel., C. asperulospora Atk.). I have added another dark fruiter, C. neonigrita Pet., but, to my knowledge, no spiny-spored taxon has been reported to produce white fruit bodies with clampless basidia. C. asterospora Pat. seems very similar by Corner's (1970) description, but I find little reason to accept that the European C. asterospora is as Corner describes it from Caribbean material, or that it belongs in subg. Holocoryne. I have too few data on which to judge C. asterospora, but I am willing to propose C. echino-nivosa on the basis of its geographic location alone. Only by proposing it as a new taxon will it receive attention by mycologists, and the problem of the identity of C. asterospora be solved.
The hymenium of Clavaria echino-nivosa is hardly thickened. Basidia arise from knots of very compact subhymenial hyphae, produce spores, and then quickly collapse, so relatively few turgid basidia can be observed in the hymenium. By making mounts from the tip of the club, however, the young basidia can be seen to lack the characteristic clamp of subg. Holocoryne. Moreover, the tramal hyphae are not only inflated but short-celled and unagglutinated, so the disarticulation of cells can be seen clearly.
Basidia are broad for their height, but so few basidia were observed in a condition favourable for measurement that I hesitate to give such statistics.