Upright coralRamaria stricta

Upright coral (Ramaria stricta) is the most common and easiest-to-find coral fungus, but it's inedible because of its tough, bitterish flesh. The Latin epithet stricta means "tightly gathered, straight" — the branches rise vertically and in parallel, thin like a little brush. Unlike the fleshy R. botrytis and R. aurea, this coral is smaller and lacier, with a distinctly wood/litter-based ecology (it grows on stumps and dead wood, not on soil).

Color: ochre-yellow to brownish-yellow, turning brown with age. The branch tips are thin, pointed, the same color as the branches, often browning. Quickly turns brown when cut or pressed — a characteristic reaction. The smell is faintly mushroomy with a hint of anise or conifer needles, the taste distinctly bitter, astringent — which is the main reason nobody eats it.

Not poisonous — it causes no acute gastrointestinal reactions, but it's bitter and tough, and it spoils the flavor of soups and fried dishes. Older literature sometimes mentions it as "conditionally edible after long boiling" — in practice it keeps a bitterish aftertaste even then, so people avoid it.

In Ukraine R. stricta is common in deciduous and mixed forests: the Carpathians, Prykarpattia, Polissia, the forest-steppe. On dead wood of beech, oak and hornbeam, less often conifers. A wood saprotroph. The season runs August — October.

Its practical value: learning to recognize it, so you don't confuse it with edible corals or waste time picking it.