Tropical Rainforest, Far North Queensland Australia Chambers Wildlife Rainforest Lodges Tropical North Queensland, Australia. They include simple, unbranched, upright clubs and fleshy, intricately branched coral-like forms.
Coral fungi are saprobes with both terrestrial and lignicolous forms.
They produce erect basidiocarps that may be simple and reasonably club-shaped or branched. Collectively, they are known as coral fungi as the basidiocarps of some species are branched to resemble coral. The fruiting bodies are generally not differentiated into an upper sterile surface and fertile underside, but instead, the spore-bearing basidia line the smooth to sometimes wrinkled surfaces of the upright clubs or branches. They normally have a sterile base, stalk or trunk though. Coral fungi are conspicuous and colourful, and some of the larger forms are edible, but others are very distasteful.