E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Hydnotrya cubispora is a brownish to pinkish-cinnamon usually terrestrial species with a more or less hollow (but lobed) interior and microscopic characters including spores that are often cubical when young (as in the asci), becoming round by maturity, an outer spore wall that is irregularly thickened, and 8-spored asci. It is infrequent among truffles in the Pacific Northwest (Trappe(13)).

Hydnotrya cubispora has been found western WA and OR to the eastern US (Trappe(13)). It is found in OR, AK, the Great Lakes region, and northeastern North America, (Smith). It has been recorded from OR, NB, NS, AK, ME, MI, and TN, (Gilkey). Distribution is southern AK south to OR, and NF and QC south to WV and west to MI, (Trappe, M.(3)). There are R. Bandoni collections from BC at the University of British Columbia.

Outer Surface:
0.5-2cm across, "somewhat lobed with a single opening to the interior"; pale pinkish buff to pinkish cinnamon, (Smith), 0.5-2cm across, "somewhat lobed and folded, with typically a single opening, rarely more"; "pale pinkish buff" or "pinkish cinnamon" or "isabella color" (colors from Ridgway); "the outer surface minutely villose", (Gilkey), "rounded to irregular, much infolded to form large canals and chambers within"; pinkish brown to brown, (Trappe, M.(3))

Interior:
"basically empty but irregular due to lobing of fruiting body", (Smith), "the cavity generally simple but somewhat irregular from the surface lobing", (Gilkey)

Odor:
mild (Trappe, M.(3))

Taste:
mild (Trappe, M.(3))

Microscopic:
spores 30-60 microns, brown, +/- cubical when young (as in asci), becoming +/- round by maturity, outer spore wall irregularly thickened; asci 8-spored, cylindric, arranged in palisade, (Smith), spores 30-60 microns, the terminal spore conspicuously elongated and occasionally reaching 90 microns; so crowded when young that they appear cubic, many retaining cubic shape when mature, epispore irregularly thickened, uniseriate; mature asci cylindric, narrowed and truncate at apex; paraphyses exceeding the asci by 100-120 microns, filiform, somewhat swollen; peridium 240-500 microns thick, "the outer layer of pseudoparenchyma changing within to prosenchyma and tangled hyphae", (Gilkey), spores 30-48(60) x 25-30 microns "including the thick epispore, rumpled-cylindrical but appearing more or less rectangular in cross section, brown at maturity", (Trappe, M.(3))