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Species Information
Summary: {See also Elfin Saddle Table.} Features include 1) relatively small size, 2) a medium to dark brown or gray-brown cap that is irregularly lobed or with two lobes and saddle-shaped, the cap underside whitish and downy or mealy, 3) a stem that is white and round or shallowly fluted, the cap margin not attached to stem, 4) fall fruiting, and 5) microscopic characters. The description is derived from Abbott(1) except where noted.
Collections were examined from BC, WA, ID, AB, AK, Germany, Sweden, and United Kingdom, and it is also distributed in CO, eastern North America, and Asia, (Abbott).
Cap: 0.6-2.4cm across, 0.5-2.4cm high, (up to 5.5cm x 5cm fresh), irregularly lobed to 2-lobed and saddle-shaped, rarely irregularly disc-shaped at first, margin inrolled to incurved at first, becoming flared to reflexed [bent upward] when mature, free from stem; medium to dark brown or gray-brown when fresh, when dried dark brown to blackish brown, rarely slightly mottled with paler patches; smooth to slightly undulate-rugose [wavy-wrinkled]
Underside: white or pallid grayish white, when dried light gray to pale yellow-brown; pubescent to finely pubescent [downy] or nearly bald when old, (Abbott), pubescent when young, pubescence frequently not evident at maturity, (Weber)
Stem: 0.8-5.8cm x 0.1-0.9cm (up to 10cm long and 1cm wide fresh), equal or widening slightly to the base, top typically tapered, stem round in cross-section or shallowly fluted, solid to hollow; white, pale yellow brown when dried; finely pubescent to pubescent [downy]
Microscopic: spores 18.6-23.3 x (10.3)11.8-13.9 microns, broadly elliptic, smooth, colorless, with one droplet; asci 280-330 x 14.4-20.8 microns; paraphyses 6.0-9.9 microns wide at tip, terminal cell 35-65 microns long, clavate, "enlarged gradually to quite abruptly or irregularly" at tip, "pale brown to brown in mass, contents finely granular"
Habitat / Range
single to gregarious on ground in coniferous or mixed woods, from July 17 in AK to December 6 in WA
Similar Species
Helvella latispora is lighter in color (pale brown to light yellow brown when dried instead of medium to dark gray-brown to brown or blackish brown when dried), and spores average slightly shorter, (Abbott). Helvella compressa has the underside of the cap villose (as opposed to finely pubescent to pubescent for H. albella), (Abbott). Helvella elastica lacks the pubescent underside and the initially inrolled margin of H. albella, the margin of H. elastica may occasionally be attached to the stem, and the stem of H. elastica is hollow: older specimens of H. albella with near bald underside and reflexed margin may be difficult to distinguish from H. elastica, (Abbott).
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