Summary: Features include whitish to tan or brown, irregular saucer-shaped cup, the underside the same color or paler, flesh that often turns golden yellow when broken, absent or indistinct stem, growth on a variety of domestic materials, especially alkaline surfaces, and microscopic characters including smooth spores that eventually become weakly punctate. The illustration in Breitenbach(1) is said by K. Hansen et al. to represent Peziza varia.
Odor: not distinctive (Phillips), pungent fragrance of fresh morels (R. Sieger, pers. comm.)
Taste: not distinctive (Phillips)
Microscopic: spores 12-14(15) x 6-9 microns, finely warted, with 2 small droplets, (Hansen, K.), spores 11-15 x 6-10 microns, elliptic, "smooth to very slightly roughened, at times with two small oil droplets", (Arora), spores 13-16 x 7-9 microns, elliptic, verruculose (with fine warts), with 1 or 2 droplets; excipulum thick, (Hansen)
Notes: Peziza domiciliana is found at least in BC, WA, OR, CA, UT, (Larsen), NY to IA and MO (Seaver), and AB (Schalkwijk-Barendsen). It is common, found throughout North America, (Phillips), and Denmark and Sweden, (Hansen).
EDIBILITY
no (Phillips)
Habitat and Range
SIMILAR SPECIES
Peziza varia and Peziza petersii are among other cup fungi that occasionally grow indoors (Arora). P. varia also occurs on damp walls, plaster and mortar, (Hansen, K.). Peziza praetervisa is close and has been regarded as a color form of Peziza domiciliana, and Peziza petersii is also close, (Dennis).
Habitat
single to gregarious or clustered "on a wide range of domestic materials: plaster, cement, sand, gravel, coal dust, carpets, fireplace ashes, etc."; said to favor strongly alkaline substrates; in houses, "cellars, greenhouses, shower stalls, damp closets, under porches, on wet rugs, behind refrigerators, around leaky water beds", in cars, (Arora), enriched soil, sawdust, etc., (Hansen), usually associated with buildings, often on damp sand, plaster, in cellars, on rotten wood in houses, (Phillips)