Summary:
Features include 1) irregularly convex or saddle-shaped or lobed cap that is medium brown to dark brown on the upper side, white or creamy or pale gray-brown and strongly ribbed on the downy underside, 2) stem that is whitish usually with wine red tints, deeply ribbed, and downy, 3) growth on rotted hardwood in late spring and summer, and 4) round spores with one droplet but without apiculi. The description is derived from Abbott(1). The online Species Fungorum, accessed June 1, 2014, gives Pseudorhizina sphaerospora (Peck) Pouzar as the current name, but the molecular study of Methven(4) nests it among Gyromitra species.
Gyromitra sphaerospora is normally eastern and midwestern in North America, but has been found in BC near Prince George (Nancy Smith-Weber, pers. comm.). Collections were examined from AB, MB, SK, Poland, and the species has been reported from MT, Europe, and Asia, (Abbott).
Cap:
0.8-9cm wide, 0.5-3.5cm high, irregularly convex, saddle-shaped, or lobed, margin strongly reflexed [bent down] at all stages, free from stem; medium brown to dark or blackish brown when fresh, dark brown to black when dried, "rarely slightly mottled with lighter and darker shades of brown, margin sometimes slightly paler brown"; undulate-rugose [wavy-wrinkled]
Underside:
white to cream or pale gray-brown; pubescent [downy], with narrow-edged ribs continuous from stem, "extending half to almost all the way to the margin"
Stem:
0.5-6cm x 0.4-4cm, often widened at base, less often equal to narrowed to base, flaring and merging with cap; white to cream, often with strong wine red tints at base or less often extending over lower two thirds of stem; pubescent, deeply ribbed, ribs widely spaced, sharp-edged, in cross section sulcate [grooved] and solid or with few chambers
Microscopic:
spores 8.5-10.3 microns in diameter, round, smooth, colorless, with one oil droplet, one de Bary bubble in most spores at maturity; asci 100-150 x 10-16.3 microns; paraphyses 4-7.5 microns wide at tip, narrowly clavate, expanded gradually to tip, "brown in mass, contents finely granular", (Abbott)
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