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Species Information
Summary: Features include irregularly deeply convoluted and wrinkled cap that is dull yellow brown to yellow brown and attached near its margin to the stem, wide whitish stem that is irregular in cross-section, growth in spring on the ground, and broad spores with short (up to 1 micron) pad-like apiculus at each end, a large central oil droplet, and usually a smaller oil droplet at each end. Gyromitra montana is considered a synonym of Gyromitra korfii by Methven(5) on molecular evidence.
Gyromitra montana is found in MI and reported (by McKnight as G. gigas, according to Weber) from BC, OR, ID, CA, CO, MT, UT, WY, Austria, (Weber). It occurs also in WA (M. Beug, pers. comm.).
Cap: 5-18cm across, convoluted when old rather than lobed; yellowish brown to brown; margin "scalloped, incurved to slightly flaring", (Weber), "strongly convoluted to folded with an irregular edge that is pushed against or fused with the stipe"; yellowish brown to brown or reddish brown, (Trudell)
Flesh: 0.15-0.25cm thick
Underside: white or nearly so
Stem: 2-14cm x 3-15cm, "fleshy, hollow with several internal anastomosing channels, longitudinally ribbed with rounded ribs"; white or nearly so, (Weber), thick, short, convoluted to folded, the interior with several anastomosing channels; white, (Trudell)
Microscopic: spores (21.4)24.3-35.8(37.5) x (9)10.7-15.8 microns, flattened on one side, with a short (up to 1 micron) broad apiculus at each end, spore faintly roughened with incomplete reticulum, one large central droplet and often a smaller one at each end; asci 350-400 x 18-24 microns; paraphyses cylindric-capitate, 4-12 microns wide at widest part, golden to ochraceous granules in upper cell(s)
Habitat / Range
common in the mountains of western North America, generally in spring, often around melting snowbanks, (Weber), spring and early summer (Trudell)
Similar Species
Gyromitra esculenta has a stem that is more or less round in cross-section, typically with one internal channel, or sometimes somewhat flattened with two internal channels, whereas the stem of Gyromitra montana has a more irregular stem with several internal anastomosing channels. Harmaja(10), in describing Gyromitra montana said that it differs from G. gigas by, the perispore excluded, slightly more elliptic, less fusiform spores with somewhat broader ends, "the inconstancy of the presence of the spore apiculi, the variable and often irregular shape and smaller size of the latter when discernible, the slightly more delicate ornamentation of the perispore, the thicker tips of the paraphyses" which may even be capitate and attain a breadth of about 13 microns (in Melzer''s reagent) while in G. gigas they are clavate to subcapititate and only reach a diameter of about 10 microns, "the earlier fruiting time often near melting snow (sometimes even developing fruitbodies under the snow!), and the different distribution in the mountains of western North America and Austria in Europe" (fruiting time and the distribution according to McKnight 1971), (Harmaja(10)). Gyromitra montana is difficult to distinguish from Gyromitra korfii [of eastern North America] on field characters, but G. korfii has relatively narrow spores and prominent knob-like apiculi at each end (rather than broad spores and pad-like apiculi), (Weber), G. korfii can be distinguished by differences which are similar to those between G. montana and G. gigas as regards spore shape, features of the spore apiculi, and the characters of occurrence but also because of the longer and broader spores of G. montana, (Harmaja(10)).
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