E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Also listed in Cups category. Features include a cup-shaped fruitbody with medium to dark brown upper surface; medium to dark brown external surface that is densely downy; medium brown to pallid densely downy stem with rounded ribs that extend onto the basal half of the underside of the cap; and microscopic characters including large spores and thick-walled paraphyses with a long terminal cell in addition to the normal thin-walled ones for the genus.

Collections were examined from BC, WA, and AK, but it is rare and endemic, (Abbott). It is found in WA and OR, (Castellano).

Cap:
0.4-5cm across, 0.3-3.3cm high (up to 10cm across and 6cm high when fresh), deeply cup-shaped, margin inrolled at first, expanding to shallowly cup-shaped or somewhat reflexed when mature; spore-bearing surface "medium to dark brown fresh, when dried dark brown to blackish brown", smooth to slightly undulate-rugose [wavy-wrinkled], (Abbott), fruitbody up to 4cm across at maturity, up to 2-3cm tall, bowl-shaped when young, spreading when old, regular from above to slightly compressed; some shade of brown to gray-brown, (Castellano), 1-4cm across, 0.8-3.5cm high, bowl-shaped to flat, margin flaring, often splitting when old; brown to grayish brown, "bister", "mummy brown" or "smoky gray"; even, (Weber)

Underside:
"medium to dark brown, sometimes paler at basal region, pubescent to densely pubescent, ribs extending onto basal half of excipular surface (rarely extending only slightly onto excipulum)", (Abbott), colored as upper surface near margin, paler toward base; lacking extensive ridges, ridges not extending to margin, (Castellano), colored as upper surface near the margin or often paler, toward the base whitish; finely pruinose to suede-like, with a few rounded ribs at base extending onto the undersurface of the cap for short distances, (Weber)

Stem:
0.2-2cm x 0.2-1.3cm (up to 5cm x 4cm fresh), internally solid, sulcate, flaring and merging with underside of cap; "medium brown to pallid (especially at base)"; "finely pubescent to pubescent, ribs indistinct to prominent, rounded, widely separated, may be bifurcate branched, but with no anastomosis between ribs", (Abbott), subsessile to short-stemmed, up to 2cm long, "consisting of rounded ribs, resembling soft folds"; "ivory to off-white", (Castellano), poorly developed to 2cm long; ''costate, ribs low, rounded, blunt resembling folds of tissue, forking or not, seldom anastomosing''; ''paler than marginal area, off-white to cream color''; minutely suede-like, (Weber)

Microscopic:
spores 22.7-27.6 x 12.6-14.6 microns, broadly elliptic or elliptic to subcylindric, smooth, colorless, with one droplet; asci 350-400 x 17-20 microns, aporhynchous; paraphyses 5.4-8.8 microns wide at tip, of two forms, "most thin-walled, terminal cell in some becoming elongated and thick-walled, clavate, expanding gradually to apex, often slightly irregular, terminal of thin-walled paraphyses 67-94 microns long, terminal cell of thick-walled paraphyses 235-300 microns long, pale brown to brown, contents finely granular, walls of thick-walled paraphyses pigmented", (Abbott), spores 23-28(30) x 13-15 microns, elliptic, smooth; asci 8-spored, inamyloid, with single basal scar; paraphyses "straight, narrowly clavate, by maturity at least some with distinctly thickened walls", (Castellano), spores 23-26(28) x 13.5-15 microns, oblong to obscurely ovate, smooth, colorless, with a large central droplet; asci 8-spored, 300-360 x 18-23 microns, aporhynchous [beak suppressed or absent]; paraphyses narrowly clavate, 3-3.5 microns wide at base, clava 5-8 microns, upper 1/3 to 1/2 light yellowish brown in KOH, branching in the lower half one or more times, often anastomosing, walls in the upper third to half often thickening when old or near the margin to 1-1.5 microns, refractive, brownish, tips remaining thin, (Weber)