Summary:
Features of Peziza varia include 1) a cup-shaped to flat fruitbody, 2) upper surface that is gray-brown, 3) underside that is furfuraceous and white to gray-brown, 4) flesh distinctly layered under a hand-lens with up to 5 layers, the middle layer often appearing as a dark line, 5) rudimentary stem, 6) growth on buried or rotting wood, and 7) microscopic characters including moniliform paraphyses. Peziza varia group are common in the Pacific Northwest. We use the term Peziza varia group to cover Peziza varia itself, Peziza cerea (which can be considered synonym of Peziza varia), and Peziza ''repanda'' collections that are compatible with the description of Peziza varia. K. Hansen et al. comment about the use of the species concept of Peziza repanda, "Since the name lacks a type specimen and has been used inconsistently it is best treated as of uncertain application." K. Hansen et al. include Peziza cerea Fr. as a synonym (finding that moniliform paraphyses were a result of moisture and not taxonomically valuable), and point out the ambiguities in the various concepts of the similar Peziza repanda, a name they treat as "of uncertain application". The molecular study of Medardi(1) showed that collections in a clade representing Peziza varia grew on a wide variety of habitats including herbivore dung.

Microscopic:
spores 14-16 x 8-10 microns, elliptic, smooth, sometimes slightly punctate, colorless, without droplets; asci 8-spored, 250-300 x 12-13 microns; paraphyses septate, with cells that are "sometimes constricted at the septa, that is, arranged in a row to resemble a chain (moniliform), especially in older specimens", up to 20 microns wide, apical end cells slender; cross-section showing up to 5 layers, with middle layer of longitudinal hyphae, (Breitenbach), spores 14-16 x 9-11 microns, elliptic, smooth; asci up to 280 x 14 microns; paraphyses "mostly with the lower or middle cells much inflated, up to 20 microns wide, apical cells slender, tips slightly clavate"; flesh "conspicuously stratified in five layers, beneath the asci is a subhymenium of small cells, then follows a zone of large subglobose or vertically elongated cells, a zone of slender woven hyphae, a lower zone of large globose cells and finally a surface zone of smaller cells and hyphae", (Dennis), spores 14-16(17.5) x 9-11(12) microns, smooth, colorless, without droplets; asci up to 280 microns long, cylindric, paraphyses clavate to moniliform; excipulum multi-layered: texture globulosa-angularis subhymenium with 5-12 microns broad cells, a 3-layered medullary excipulum (internal or upper texture globulosa-angularis layer with 20-100(110) microns broad cells, median textura intricata, external or lower textura angularis layer with 20-45 microns broad cells), and ectal texture globulosa excipulum with 15-20 microns broad cells, (Medardi)

Notes:
Peziza varia is found at least in ID (Larsen), Switzerland (Breitenbach), United Kingdom (Dennis), Finland and Sweden, (Hansen, L.(1)), Italy and Russia (Medardi), and OR, MA, Denmark, Finland, Russia, and the United Kingdom, (Hansen, K.). There is a Paul Kroeger collection from BC deposited at the University of British Columbia.