Red Coral
Ramaria araiospora
Also called red coral fungus, scarlet coral
A brilliantly red to scarlet branched coral of Pacific conifer forests, growing from deep needle duff. Some forms carry contrasting yellow branch tips.
Overview
Red Coral is among the most vividly coloured branched fungi of the temperate world, producing tufts of scarlet to crimson branches that glow against the dark brown needle duff of coastal conifer forest. Clusters are typically 5-12 cm tall, more slender and delicate than the massive cauliflower corals of broadleaf woods.
The species belongs to Ramaria (Gomphaceae), and is best known from the Pacific Northwest of North America, where it is one of the signature autumn fungi of hemlock and mixed conifer stands. Two colour forms are commonly recognised: one essentially red throughout, and another with clear yellow tips crowning red branches.
Its brilliance is unusual for a soil-dwelling coral. Most large Ramaria species run from cream and ochre through yellow to salmon; a saturated scarlet immediately narrows the possibilities within the genus.
How to identify it
Fruiting body
An upright, repeatedly branched cluster 5-12 cm tall and 3-10 cm across, rising from a short, pale, tapering base often buried in duff. The habit is fairly open and coral-like rather than densely cauliflower-shaped.
Branches and tips
Branches are slender, cylindrical and smooth, coloured bright red, scarlet or magenta-red when young, fading to orange-red or pinkish with age and weathering. Forking is repeated and fairly regular, with tips fine and blunt to slightly pointed; in one common form the terminal branchlets are clear yellow, producing a striking two-tone effect.
Flesh and spore print
Flesh is white to pale pinkish and brittle, without dramatic staining. The spore print is pale yellow, and the spores are narrowly cylindrical with a minutely roughened wall, which is where the epithet referring to slender spores comes from.
Where and when it grows
Red Coral fruits from deep conifer duff and mossy forest floor, typically under western hemlock and in mixed stands with Douglas fir, spruce and true firs. It favours moist, mature forest with a thick, undisturbed litter layer and often appears in scattered troops rather than singly.
The season is autumn into early winter in the mild, wet coastal climate of its core range, which runs along the Pacific coast of North America from British Columbia south through Washington, Oregon and northern California. Related red corals occur elsewhere, but the vivid Pacific populations are the best known.
Ecological role
The species is ectomycorrhizal with conifers, wrapping the short feeder roots of its hosts in a fungal mantle and extending hyphae far out into the duff to scavenge water and mineral nutrients. In the acidic, nutrient-locked litter of coastal conifer forest, this partnership is central to how the trees obtain nitrogen and phosphorus.
The fungus persists as a perennial mycelium in the duff layer, fruiting when autumn rain and cooling temperatures coincide. Fruiting bodies are disturbed by slugs, small mammals and beetles that help scatter spores, and their decay returns nutrients to the litter horizon where the mycelium is concentrated.
Similar species
Ramaria stuntzii is another red Pacific coral, generally with a more orange-red hue and a stouter, paler base. Ramaria subbotrytis is pink to coral-pink rather than scarlet and forms a bulkier, more cauliflower-like cluster. Ramaria botrytis has a thick white trunk and only its tips are pink, with cream branches beneath.
Clavaria zollingeri and Clavulina amethystina are violet rather than red, white-spored and much smaller. Any red branched fungus on wood rather than duff is worth checking against Artomyces species, which have distinctive crown-shaped branch tips.