North Island: UNP, vic. Lake Waikaremoana, 21.v.81, coll. RHP, no. 42300 (TENN); UNP, Black Beech Track, 23.v.81, coll. GS, no. 42320 (TENN); UNP, Aniwaniwa Falls Track, 26.v.81, coll. RHP, no. 42399 (TENN); WKR, Big Kauri Track to Te Matua Ngahere, 23.vi.81, coll. RHP, no. 42379, 42380 (TENN); Upper Hutt, Kaitoke Waterworks, 22.v.82, coll.RHP, no. 43559 (TENN); OSF,15.v.81, coll. EH, no. 600 (ZT). South Island: PSR, Trig Track; 21.v.82, coll. RHP, no. 43558 (holotype, PDD; isotype, TENN); FGNP, to Gillespie's Beach, 7.iv.83, coll. RHP, no. 44077 (TENN); FGNP, track to Lake Gault, 9.iv.83, coll. RHP, no. 44132 (TENN).

Fruit bodies up to 8 cm high, up to 3 mm thick, simple clubs, narrowly fusiform to cylindrical, scattered to gregarious or connate in pairs. Stipe slightly expanded at base, with no discernible mycelial patch, off-white to "pale ochraceous salmon" at base, becoming more apricot above ("light buff", "orange-buff", "light orange-yellow", "light ochraceous salmon"), not well delimited from hymenium when fresh, more distinct when dry. Club opaque, appearing waxy, buffy apricot to apricot ("capucine-buff", "capucine-orange", "light ochraceous salmon", "orange-buff", "light orange-yellow", "seashell pink"), or pinkish orange ("mikado-orange"), narrowing slightly above; apex rounded to narrowly rounded. Odor and taste negligible.
Macro chemical reaction: FCL = negative or very pallid violaceous.
Tramal hyphae not significantly inflated, thin-walled, hyaline, parallel, tightly packed, adherent to free, clamped. Basidia 40-50 x 6-8 µm, clavate, clamped; contents multiguttulate when mature, the guttules concentrated at the distal end, and often with a large guttule apical; sterigmata 4, stout, straight, somewhat divergent.
Spores 5-7.8 x 5-6.5 µm, globose to subglobose, smooth, thin-walled; contents opalescent to uniguttulate; hilar appendix papillate, prominent.

Receptacula ut in Clavaria phoenicea sed persicina vel armeniaca. Hyphis, basidiis et sporis ut in C. phoenicea.

The problems associated with these carotene-depositing taxa have been discussed by Petersen (1979, 1985a). Several colour variants occur over the whole tropical and subtropical range. The variant described above is the only one I have seen from New Zealand, and micro morphologically it comes very close to Clavulinopsis sulcata van Overeem, at least in its least pink state. It is also, in part, the taxon treated by me for south-eastern Australia as Clavulinopsis amoena (Petersen 1970), and apparently occurs also in Tierra del Fuego (Petersen, unpublished data). With such consistency of morphology, and of fruit body colour (micro morphological constancy is taken for granted in this complex), I consider it appropriate to propose the taxon as an apricot-coloured variety of C. phoenicea, the typical variety of which is purple-red. After study of the type of Clavulinopsis sulcata van Overeem (Petersen 1980), I do not consider them to be conspecific (cf. under Clavaria sulcata).