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Species Information
Summary: Also listed in Morels etc. category. Features include a cup-shaped to bilobed fruitbody with gray-brown to dark brown upper surface; gray-brown, downy undersurface without ribs; whitish to gray-brown, downy stem that is highly ribbed; fruiting from April to October; and microscopic characters. The description below derived from Arora is for Helvella queletii (which he says has a longer stem than H. solitaria). Helvella queletii included as a synonym by Abbott.
Collections of H. solitaria were examined from BC, WA, OR, ID, and also the Northwest Territories, AB, MB, SK, AK, NY, WY, Norway, Finland, and Romania, and it has been reported from eastern North America and Europe, (Abbott). It has also been recorded from CA and CO, (Larsen).
Upper surface: 1.3-6cm across, 0.4-4.4cm high (up to 12.0 x 5cm fresh), cup-shaped, often laterally compressed at first, often becoming bilobate, shallowly cup-shaped, or somewhat reflexed when old, margin slightly inrolled at first; spore-bearing upper surface gray-brown to dark brown when fresh, when dry dark gray-brown to blackish brown, smooth to slightly undulate-rugose [wavy-wrinkled], (Abbott), 2-8(12)cm across, usually concave with opposite margins at first rolled up and in, becoming shallowly cup-shaped or saucer-shaped to flat or even with down-curved margin when old; upper surface blackish to grayish brown to brown or in one form pale brown to buffy-brown; smooth; margin often splitting when old, (Arora)
Flesh: thin, rather brittle, (Arora)
Underside: medium to dark gray-brown at margin, base typically paler gray-brown to white; pubescent [downy] to densely pubescent, ribs absent or extending very slightly onto base of underside, (Abbott), same color as upper surface or more often paler or grayer; minutely roughened (granulose) to nearly smooth, without ribs, (Arora)
Stem: 0.7-10.5cm x 0.2-5cm (up to 12cm x 5cm when fresh), equal or widened at base, top flaring slightly, sulcate and internally solid or with a few chambers; "white to pale or grey brown", occasionally dark gray-brown at top; finely pubescent to pubescent, highly ribbed or rarely with sparse ribbing, ribs simple or branching and anastomosed, (Abbott), (1)2.5-7(12)cm x 0.5-2(5)cm, equal or wider in lower part, deeply longitudinally ribbed, the ribs extending only to the base of the cup; white or sometimes tinged buff, tan, or ocher, (Arora)
Microscopic: spores 17-21 x 11-13.5 microns, broadly elliptic, smooth, colorless, with one droplet; asci 240-300 x 14-18 microns, pleurorhynchous; paraphyses 7-8 microns wide at tip, end cell 89-144 microns long, "clavate, brown, contents finely granular", (Abbott), spores (17)19-22 x 11-14 microns, elliptic to oblong, smooth, with large central oil droplet, (Arora)
Habitat / Range
single or often gregarious to numerous and scattered on ground in soil or litter in coniferous, mixed, or occasionally hardwood woods, April to October, (Abbott), single, scattered or in small groups in forest humus or occasionally on rotting wood, usually under hardwoods, late spring and summer, but in California may fruit in winter and early spring, (Arora)
Similar Species
Helvella costifera is similar in color but has more prominent ribbing on the stem and the underside of the cap and a relatively broader stem, (Abbott). Helvella leucomelaena has aporhynchous asci and larger spores, (Abbott). H. leucomelaena has a less distinct stem that is often buried until maturity and the species differs microscopically, (Arora). Helvella cupuliformis never attains a large size, has an unpigmented stem, and lacks prominent ribbing on the stem with the ribs always absent from the base of the excipulum, (Abbott). Helvella fibrosa (as H. chinensis) never achieves large size, lacks prominent ribbing on stem and has slightly narrower spores, (Abbott).
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