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

Summary:
Features include 1) yellow-brown or tan, bluntly conic to bell-shaped cap attached to stem only at top, the cap surface deeply wrinkled by folds or ribs and often vertically oriented, 2) more or less equal stuffed stem that is whitish, often roughened by small orangish to brownish granules that may form transverse belts or ribs, 3) fruiting on ground in spring, and 4) very large spores in 2-spored asci. Michael Beug has found in the Pacific Northwest a Verpa fitting the macroscopic description of V. bohemica but with 8-spored basidia (pers. comm.). He has also found a 2-spored Verpa in Yakima County that appears like a Verpa bohemica except for an apricot color for the cap - free spores measured (43.8)49.7-59.1 (71.7) x (18.3)18.9-21.1(22.5) microns in water (M. Beug, pers. comm.). The sequencing showed it to simply be Verpa bohemica, and the coloring is shown in two of the attached photos.

Verpa bohemica has been found throughout North America (Lincoff(2)), in the Pacific Northwest, and prairie provinces including AB, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), and in Switzerland (Breitenbach - very rare). Collections from BC are deposited at Pacific Forestry Centre and the University of British Columbia. A collection from WA is deposited at the University of British Columbia.

Cap:
1-5cm across and 2-5cm high (sometimes much larger), "bluntly conic to somewhat bell-shaped, squarish, or irregular", attached to stem only at the top, the margin often touching but not joined to the stem when young, sometimes flaring or upturned when old; "pale to dark yellow-brown or tan", often darker brown when old; "deeply wrinkled by branching folds or ribs which are often vertically oriented and sometimes branch to form pits", (Arora), entire fruitbody 4-15cm high, cap 2-5cm high, bell-shaped to cylindric, "irregularly wrinkled almost like a morel, ribs sinuous, more or less vertical and strongly prominent"; light to dark brown, (Breitenbach)

Flesh:
rather thin and fragile, (Arora), fragile (Breitenbach), white (Phillips)

Underside:
whitish to brownish, (Arora), whitish (Breitenbach)

Stem:
6-15cm x 0.8-3cm (or sometimes much larger), equal or narrowing slightly in either direction, "more or less round in cross-section, usually stuffed loosely with a cottony white pith"; whitish to cream or becoming tan or ocher when old; ''smooth or often roughened by small orangish to brownish granules which may form transverse belts or "ribs"'', (Arora), 4-15cm x 1-3cm, solid when young then hollow, free from stem all the way to the tip of the cap; ocher, (Breitenbach)

Odor:
pleasant (Phillips), slightly acidic (Lincoff(1))

Taste:
pleasant (Phillips), slightly bitter but not unpleasant (Lincoff(1))

Microscopic:
spores 54-80 x 15-18 microns, elliptic-elongate, smooth, without oil droplets; asci 2-spored, (Arora), spores 55-87 x 17-20(22) microns, smooth, cylindric, sometimes slightly curved, colorless; asci 2-spored, 250-350 x 18-25 microns, not blue with iodine; paraphyses cylindric, slightly sinuous, septate, 5-8 microns wide, illustrated branching, (Breitenbach)

Spore Deposit:
yellow (Phillips)