The fruiting bodies are the colour of egg yolks. Bright. Unmistakable. They rise from the soil in dense clusters, each stem narrow and unbranched, unlike the branched White Coral. Some clusters contain twenty individuals. Some contain sixty. The stems are smooth, sometimes flattened, sometimes grooved lengthwise. They reach twelve centimetres at most. Most grow half that height. Touch one and it snaps. The flesh is brittle, waxy, hollow at the centre. Diet is saprotrophic. Clavulinopsis fusiformis consumes organic matter in the upper soil layer. It breaks down grass roots, leaf fragments, and the accumulated thatch of open grassy places. Unlike wood-decay fungi, it does not require forest debris. It thrives in places where grasses grow, flower, die, and collapse back into the earth. The mycelium runs through the top five centimetres of soil. When conditions are right, the yellow fingers push upward overnight. Habitat preferences are specific but not exclusive. Damp grasslands. Unimproved pasture. The edges of walking tracks where compaction is low. Lawns that are mown but not sprayed. It avoids heavy shade. It avoids waterlogged ground. It appears most reliably in places where grass has grown uninterrupted for several years. Newly sown paddocks do not host it. Old sheep pasture sometimes does. Threats include intensive agriculture, fungicide use on lawns, and the conversion of rough grassland to crop production. Unlike forest fungi, this species has no refuge in reserves. Most of its habitat is private land. The same paddocks that host it in autumn may be sprayed or ploughed the following spring. Drought also kills the mycelium directly. A single dry summer can wipe out a fruiting population for several years. Range across New Zealand is poorly documented but likely widespread. Confirmed records exist from Northland, Waikato, Manawatu, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago. It grows in both islands. The absence of records from Southland and Westland may reflect under-sampling rather than true absence. It occurs in Australia, Europe, and North America. New Zealand populations appear identical to northern hemisphere specimens based on morphology.