Yellow stagshorn or Ramaria flava

There's no cap. The fruit body is bushy: from a short base it forks into slender branches a few millimetres thick, with pointed, often forked tips, 3 to 6 cm tall and occasionally 10 cm. Small specimens can be simple spikes forked at the top.

The colour ranges from egg-yolk yellow to orange-yellow, with a paler, whitish-yellow base. It reddens as it dries. In wet weather the surface is greasy and sticky.

There's no true cap. The fruiting body is bushy and coral-like, 5 to 20 centimetres tall and wide, with a thick, fleshy whitish base from which many tightly bunched branches reach upward. The tips are blunt, forked or many-toothed. The branches are sulphur-yellow, lemon-yellow or golden, paler and whitish at the base; with handling and age the mushroom turns brown or develops reddish spots.

There are no gills or pores: the spores form over almost the whole surface of the branches except the base.

The spore print is whitish to pale yellow.

The smooth spore-bearing surface covers the whole surface of the branches, and that's where the spores form. There are no gills, tubes or spines. The spore print is ochre-yellow. A smooth fertile layer on yellow branching arms is typical of coral Ramaria species.

There's no separate stem. The short, paler base roots deep into the wood.

There's no distinct stem; its role is played by a thick, fleshy whitish base (trunk) from which the branches spread. The base is dense and may turn brown or pinkish when touched or damaged. The whole fungus is fleshy and rather brittle, especially when mature.

The flesh is springy, rubbery-gelatinous and cartilaginous, bending rather than snapping. It turns hard when dry.

The flesh is whitish, fleshy and brittle, and may slowly turn brown or pinkish when cut or handled. Vienna's mushroom advice service describes the taste as bitter. We advise against eating it: its laxative lookalikes are often told apart only under a microscope.

The smell and taste aren't distinctive.

The smell is faint and pleasant, or grassy and mushroomy, with no sharp notes. Scent isn't a defining feature: you recognise this one by its yellow coral-like body with blunt forked branch tips and its whitish fleshy base.