Fruit bodies up to 8 x 5 cm, branched, obovate in profile. Stipe single, stout but not massive, smooth, with no aborted branchlets, off-white where protected, rounded at base, tapering downward; flesh solid, off-white, drying more or less friable. Major branches 2, stout, up to 15 x 10 mm, terete or grooved in cross-section, pallid beige to dull greyish yellow; flesh white; secondary branches similar; axils narrowly rounded; internodes diminishing gradually. Uppermost branches (just below apices) suffused with dull lavender, dull violaceous or avellaneous colours. Apices molar-like, blunt, rather abruptly purplish or flesh brown; bruises appearing pale brunnescent. Odour and taste negligible.

Macrochemical reactions: KOH = pale yellow; NOH = negative; IKI = negative.

Tramal hyphae of branches 3-8 gm diam., clamped, hyaline, free, more or less parallel. Hymenium thickening; basidia 70-85 x 7-10 gym, clavate, moderately cyanophilous, clamped.

Spores 9.7-11.9 x 4.7-5.8 gm (E =1.93-2.38; E°' = 2.15; L^' = 11.06 gm), ellipsoid, with suprahilar depression, obscurely roughened; contents sometimes obscurely 1-2 guttulate; wall less than 0.2 gm thick; ornamentation of longitudinal or diagonal (abaxial-distal to adaxial-proximal), moderately cyanophilous striae.

Receptacula ad 80 x 50 mm, ramosa, in circumscriptione obovata. Stipite indivisibili, lato, laevi, pallide cmmeo, deorsum contracto; caro solida, pallide cremea, in IKI immutabili; ramis et ramulis latis, sordide pallide flavis; apidbus cuspidatis purpurascentibus ad incamato-brunneis; odore et sapore nullo. Hyphis fibulatis; basidiis 70-85 Km longis, fibulatis. Sporis 9.7-11.9 x 4.7-5.8 Pm, ellipsoideis, ornatis, striatis, ut in oratione infra.

The striate-spored taxa of Ramaria will prove as confusing in New Zealand and Australia as they have in western North America (cf. Marr & Stuntz 1973). The taxon described here bears the colouration of Ramaria strasseri (Bresadola) Corner, but fruit bodies of that European taxon show more massive stipes, and spore dimensions are uniformly larger (14.4 -17.8 x 5.9¬7.4 gm from the lectotype at Stockholm). Apparently, no red-staining colouration was observed on the fruit bodies of R. purpureopallida, a distinctive feature of R. holorubella (Atk.) Corner and other similar taxa. All descriptions above of fruit body characters have been taken from notes and photographs by Egon Horak. I have described the micro-morphological characters from dried material. The outline of spore ornamentation is irregular and is too roughened to be typical of the striate-spored group. Although so, I judge it to be striate and, with fruit body morphology being rather typical of the subgenus, I have little hesitation in placing the species.