The branches are initially white before darkening to pale brown and umber, usually with darker tips.

[5] The spores are roughly spherical to pip-shaped, smooth, contain a single oil droplet, and measure 4–6.7 by 3–6 μm.

Ecologist Abbie Patterson made the discovery on a lawn at the campus and has come up with a "quirky theory" that soldiers' boots may have picked up spores in the mud of the Flanders Fields.

As evidence, Patterson offers a photograph of soldiers and nurses lined up on the same spot that he made his discovery.

)[11] However, the National Biodiversity Network's Gateway site indicates that the species has been recorded in Scotland on about twenty previous occasions though Patterson's find was the first to be verified.

This verification was clarified by Professor Roy Watling MBE, PhD., DSc, FRSE, F.I.Biol., C.Biol., FLS (born 1938) is a Scottish mycologist who has made significant contributions to the study of fungi both in identification of new species and correct taxonomic placement, as well as in fungal ecology.