Summary:
Features include a more or less spherical fruitbody with a cinnamon brown surface that dries russet or darker, a spore mass that is very dark brown, a pungent-fragrant odor, an olive-black reaction to both KOH and FeSO4, and microscopic characters including smooth, narrowly oblong spores, and "extreme development of the mucilaginous wall thickening, extending to the subhymenium and tramal hyphae", and coiled to crooked hyphae as well as flagellum-like hyphae in the peridial epicutis. It is rare in the Pacific Northwest (Trappe(13)).

Chemical Reactions:
olive black reaction in both KOH and FeSO4, the latter distinct on both fresh and dried material, (this is probably on the surface although this is not specifically stated), (Smith(30))

Interior:
chambers small to medium; dark cinnamon-brown when mature, (Smith(30))

Odor:
pungent-fragrant when fresh, (Smith(4))

Microscopic:
spores 6.5-8 x 2-2.8 microns; ''epicutis of crooked dark brown (in KOH) hyphae 4-15 microns wide, "knee-joint" cells present, flagellate hyphal ends also present'', (Smith(4)), spores 6.5-8 x 2.2-2.8 microns, narrowly oblong, no obvious basal scar but sometimes with false septum, smooth, in Melzer''s reagent yellowish, in KOH faintly yellowish singly and pale dingy brown in mass; basidia soon collapsed and not reviving; hymenium "made up of thick-walled paraphyses with the cells in chains 1-4 cells long", the central body remaining yellowish in Melzer''s reagent, the cells versiform [of various forms] (some lengths of hyphae even developing thickened walls), 6-12 microns wide, the terminal cells 10-25 x 7-12 microns; tramal plates with colorless highly refractive loosely interwoven hyphae 4-10 microns wide, cells enlarged in places at times; subhymenium "cellular and cells often thick-walled (as part of the chains of cells forming the paraphyses)"; peridium 2-layered: 1) epicutis of hyphae 4-15 microns wide, coiled to crooked, dark brown in KOH, walls up to 1.5 microns thick, many with "knee-joint-like" shapes, "these elements forming an obscure tangled turf which collapses or becomes rubbed off", flagellum-like hyphae tapering to an acute almost colorless apex also present, 2) "inner layer of appressed thin-walled hyphae green in KOH and FeSO4", mostly 4-8 microns wide "and many of these hyphae developing wall thickenings comparable to those of the hymenial elements, amyloid granules present but often rare in the peridial context or along hymenium"; clamp connections absent, (Smith(30))

Notes:
Its distribution is ID and probably Oregon (Smith(30)). There is a Paul Kroeger collection from BC deposited at the University of British Columbia.

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Peziza amorpha Pers.
Thelephora amorpha (Pers.) Fr.