Summary:
Features include 1) a more or less spherical fruitbody with a thick rind-like skin that is not marbled in cross-section, the surface pale to dingy ochraceous, 2) a spore mass that is cottony to powdery, colored dark brown to black when mature, and 3) large spores that are round with short spines and are produced on asci, (Arora). It is often parasitized by Cordyceps, and may be the most common underground fruiting fungus in North America, (Smith(4)). It is abundant among truffles in the Pacific Northwest, but represents a species complex temporarily designated by a European name, none in the Pacific Northwest being identical with the European species (Trappe(13)).

Interior:
"dark brown to black and powdery at maturity", (Smith), "at first hollow, soon stuffed with cottony tissue, eventually becoming powdery when spores mature"; "white at first, soon grayish to purplish (and often separated into chambers by whitish bands), finally becoming blackish and powdery", (Arora)

Odor:
not very distinctive (Arora), faintly metallic (Trappe, M.(3))

Microscopic:
spores 28-45 microns in diameter, round, dark red-brown in KOH, with closely set short soft spines aggregated into irregular clusters; asci fleeting, (Smith), spores 24-45(65) microns, "round, thick-walled, blackish-brown to very dark reddish-brown under the microscope, ornamented with short spines or warts", asci "mostly 8-spored, round to pear-shaped, not forming a hymenium", and disintegrating before spores fully mature, (Arora), mature spores 23-32 microns in diameter with individual spines easily discernible and 2-4 microns long, immature spores (within asci) colorless with a distinctly radially striate epispore, (Hansen, L.)

Notes:
Elaphomyces granulatus has been reported from BC in Redhead(5), from WA by Jumpponen(1), and from OR by Luoma(1) and Fogel(8). It is listed for ID by Hawker (in Fogel(7)), and reported from CO by Fogel(7). It has been found in the United Kingdom (Hawker(1)).

EDIBILITY

yes according to some reports but not choice, used for centuries in Europe as aphrodisiac and truffle substitute, (Arora)