North Island: WKR, vic. Forestry Headquarters, 24.vi.81, coll. RHP, no. 42492 (holotype, TENN); WKR, 24.vi.81, coll. RHP, no. 43707 (TENN); WKR, vic. Forestry Headquarters, 30.v.82, coll. GS, no. 43553 (TENN); WR, Mill Bay, 6.vii.81, coll. EH, no. 1060 (ZT).

Fruit bodies up to 7 cm high, up to 3 mm thick, simple clubs, narrowly fusiform, gregarious to connate in small groups (up to 3 individuals), arising from small, tough, whitish mycelial patches. Stipe base buffy grey ("tileul buff"), with a distinct ring above of grey-purple to purple ("deep dull bluish violet 2", "deep violet plumbeus"), equal, not expanded at base. Club "dark mouse-grey" to "dark olive-grey", equal or somewhat expanded upward, opaque; apex narrowly rounded, purple, concolourous with ring on stipe; all parts slowly turning to bright greenish yellow ("lemon-chrome") in old age and in 2% KOH solution.
Tramal hyphae of club up to 15 µm diam., hyaline, inflated, slightly thick-walled (wall up to 0.3) µm thick), free, parallel, clamped; secondary septa absent. Subhymenium poorly developed. Hymenium thickening; basidia 80-100 x 7.5-8.5 µm, elongate-clavate, clamped; contents multiguttulate at maturity, the guttules highly refringent; sterigmata 4, stout, straight, divergent.
Spores 7.2-9.4 x 4.7-5.8 µm (E <= 1.43-1.63; E^m =1.58; L^m = 8.25 µm), ellipsoid to short-cylindrical, flattened adaxially, smooth, thin-walled; contents homogeneous to uniguttulate at maturity; hilar appendix broad, papillate.

On soil and humus.

Receptacula ut in Clavaria echino-nivosa, sed pallide purpurea, vetustate et siccitate flava. Hyphis et basidiis fibulatis. Sporis ellipsoideis, laevis, ut in oratione infra. Hymenium in FCL non-virescens.

This is a most handsome taxon. Purple colours are almost unknown in the subgenus, and the slow change from purple to yellow is most striking especially on fruit bodies where all colours are present.
The possession of elongate spores places the taxon with such others as Clavaria gracillima, C. amoena (= C. aurantia), and C. fusispora. The complex has few taxa, and seems pantropical in distribution, including eastern North America.
The nature of pigmentation in the group is not known, but probably includes carotenes. The rapid colour change from purple to yellow in dilute KOH solution would indicate an oxidation reaction, common in carotenes.