Summary:
Features include a deep cup with a pinkish to gray interior, a margin that is often toothed and may split and spread when old, a whitish exterior that darkens to grayish when old and discolors dark with handling, a whitish stem typically immersed in soil, litter, or duff, growth in spring under conifers, and microscopic characters. It is possible that North American material is distinct from the European species, in which case the American lineage could be accommodated under the name Neournula nordmanensis Paden & Tylutki (Carbone(1)).

Microscopic:
spores 23-32 x 8-10.5 microns, "subcylindric to obscurely fusoid, the majority narrowly elliptic", "ornamented with low random ridges and warts"; asci "operculate, inamyloid, relatively thick-walled, base narrow and curving", (Castellano), spores 23-31.5 x 8-10.4 microns, elliptic to oblong with rounded ends, smooth, becoming covered with warts, (Lincoff), spores 23-31.5 x 8-10.4 microns, elliptic to oblong with rounded ends, "smooth when young, at maturity ornamented with low warts that stain in heated cotton blue" and dissolve in dilute KOH, without droplets or containing a few small oil droplets; asci 8-spored, 290-390 x 12-15 microns, cylindric, suboperculate, bases blunt, usually twisted, occasionally lobed, connected to the underlying tissue by a relatively narrow hypha, occasionally a lobed base cut off as a separate cell, tips often bent, not maturing simultaneously, suboperculate, opercula eccentric; paraphyses 3-3.5 microns wide, "narrow, septate, freely branched and anastomosing", "tips embedded in a pale brown, amorphous material"; medullary excipulum about 500 microns thick, of textura intricata (intricately interwoven), the hyphae 2-5 microns wide, ectal excipulum of textura angularis (of subrectangular to polyhedral cells), inner cells colorless, outer cells with pale brown walls, giving rise to scattered nearly colorless to pale brown hairs 4-5 microns wide, up to 70 microns long, (Paden)

Notes:
Collections were examined from BC, WA, ID, (Paden). It has been found at least in BC, WA, OR, and ID, (Larsen), and reported in eastern Canada, (Lincoff), as well as France and North Africa (Trudell).

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Neournula nordmanensis Paden & Tylutki
Urnula pouchetii erthet & Riousset