Fruit bodies up to 4 cm high, up to 3 cm broad, repeatedly branched, arbuscular, arising from tangles of slender, white, fragile rhizomorphic strands. Stipe up to 20 x 4 mm, channelled to grooved, white below, when young concolourous with branches, in age darkening to brown colours ("tawny-olive", "Verona-brown"). Branches curved-ascending to strict, up to 2 mm thick, flattened, tan to fleshy tan ("cinnamon buff', "clay-color", "buckthorn-brown", "tawny-olive"); hymenium unilateral; axils narrowly to openly rounded or lunate; internodes diminishing gradually. Apices elongate, acute, pale creamy beige ("cream-buff", "light buff", "warm buff", "pale ochraceous buff"). Stipe and lower branches appearing watersoaked, especially when bruised, easily changing colour to watery brown. Odour fresh, perhaps of pipe tobacco; taste bitter. Sections of branches in 2% KOH leaching pinkish pigment briefly, then leaching yellow-brown. Macrochemical reactions: NOH, KOH = leaching peach to coral-coloured briefly, then yellow-brown; FCL = green-black; PHN, GUA = negative; ANO = ambiguous; PYR = positive.

Tramal hyphae of branches 3.5-8 gm diam., clamped, parallel, hyaline, free, slightly thick-walled (wall up to 0.2 gm thick). Basidia 25-30 x 5-6 I.m, clavate, clamped, yellowish under phase contrast; sterigmata 4, spindly, erect. Spores (Fig. 99) 7.6-8.6 x 4-4.3 gm (E =1.83-2.19; E'" = 2.03; L'° = 8.24 gm),.curved teardrop-shaped, roughened;' contents homogeneous to obscurely refringent; wall up to 0.2 gm thick; hilar appendix curved, not prominent, appearing as extension of spore body; ornamentation of narrow, blunt spines up to 2 gm long, scattered all over spore surface.

This is difficult to distinguish from Ramaria ambigua, which shares general stature, rich ochre colouration and snow-white base and rhizomorphs. The two are easily separated on spore shape, which also separates them from both R. ochracea and its variety sicco-olivacea. Most characters match the Ramaria flaccida complex, with unilateral hymenium and teardrop-shaped spores of appropriate size. Of these taxa, R. perfluo-punicea produces the longest spores (but by only less than 1 gm). Even the watersoaked appearance of the fruit bodies matches the same character in R. flaccida (Fr.) Rick. Indeed, the two taxa are virtually indistinguishable (at least from dried material and the fresh material I have seen from Scandinavia and New Zealand). I keep them separate until more material can be seen.

Corner (1970) considered Ramaria flaccida (Fr.) Bourd. almost cosmopolitan, but Petersen (1981) used narrower taxonomic concepts, restricting R. flaccida to a fungus seen only from the North Temperate Zone. I have seen no specimens from the tropics which exactly match R. flaccida. Although there is always a possibility that R. flaccida was introduced to New Zealand as the mycorrhizal symbiont of some higher plant, I prefer to keep the taxon separate at present.

The specific epithet denotes the leaching of pink pigment by branch sections into dilute KOH solution. Under the same conditions, Ramaria ochracea var. sicco-olivacea leaches sordid yellow pigment after only a few seconds.

TENN no. 43870 represents an unusual growth form in which the branches are flattened and palmately broad, with branchlets arising as talon-shaped spurs (sometimes rebranched) from the periphery of the flattened branches. Colour and micromorphological characters are typical of the species, however, so I have elected not to segregate the fruit body type, although it seems unique.