It has a cosmopolitan distribution, and grows on dead wood, stumps, trunks, and branches of both deciduous and coniferous trees.

Its fruit body is up to 10 cm (3+7⁄8 in) tall, made of multiple slender, compact, and vertical parallel branches.

There are several lookalike corals that can usually be distinguished from R. stricta by differences in coloration, bruising reaction, or microscopic features.

[8] Several variants have been described: Another widespread and common coral, R. apiculata, typically grows on conifer wood, and bruises brown like R. stricta, but it has green pigmentation.

The fungus is lignicolous, common in late summer and fall in coniferous forests of the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountains.

[9] The fungus grows on dead wood, stumps, trunks, and branches of both leafy and coniferous trees.

Fruit bodies can form in "log lines" where decaying wood is buried underground near the surface, or is in an advanced state of decomposition.