General Description

 Ascomata. Gastronomically prized, hypogeous to partially emergent at maturity, 2-6 cm diam., subglobose, turbinate, obpyriform, with a more or less apparent sterile base, grayish beige at first, becoming blackish brown with age, unpolished, often cracked, sometimes with deep crevices; peridium 1-2 mm thick, yellowish white in cross section, pseudoparenchymatous, composed of globose cells, 15-50 μm diam., sometimes with hyphae, colourlesss, yellowish in the outermost layers; gleba solid, fleshy, succulent, whitish to pale pink at first, maturing to pink salmon pockets of fertile tissue separated by sterile veins concolorous with the peridium in cross section, inconspicuous at maturity, sometimes with yellowish brown spots; odour: faint, not distinctive; taste: mild, pleasant. Asci. Randomly arranged in fertile pockets of the ascoma, non-amyloid, subglobose to ovoid, pyriform, sessile or short-stipitate, 60-110 × 50-80 μm, with 4-6 (-8) irregularly disposed spores. Ascospores. Globose, 20-25 μm diam. including ornamentation, colourless, smooth and uniguttulate at first, then yellow and ornamented with rounded, sometimes truncated warts, up to 2 μm tall and 2 μm broad, forming crests and connected in an irregular and low reticulum, most conspicuous at first, with low warts; warts very prominent at maturity; reticulum inconspicuous with light microscope.