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Species Information
Summary: Features include 1) a small, nearly round or irregular, orange-brown fruitbodies with a granulose surface, 2) a solid interior that is light brown marbled with white veins, 3) a garlicky odor, 4) underground growth in association with conifers or hardwoods, and 5) microscopic characters including spores with reticulate ornamentation, and other details that distinguish it from other Tuber species. The description here is derived from Guevara(1).
The holotype is from OR (Guevara). Fruitbodies have been found from 2 locations in BC and ectomycorrhizae have been sequenced from 2 more, (Berch(4)).
Outer Surface: 0.5-2.0cm across, subglobose [nearly spherical] to globose or irregular; "orange brown, light brown when dried"; peridium granulose to irregularly roughened with 8-10 flat to rounded warts per millimeter
Interior: solid; "light brown marbled with white veins"
Odor: garlicky
Taste: not recorded
Microscopic: spores excluding ornamentation in 1-spored asci 37-47 x 32-40 microns, in 2-spored asci (26)32-45 x 23-28 microns, in 3-spored asci 20-35 x 20-30 microns, and in 4-spored asci 23-28 x 19-26 microns, "subglobose to broadly ellipsoid or sometimes globose", walls up to 4 microns thick "and reddish brown to brown in KOH, reddish brown in Melzer''s reagent", reticulum with (4)6-10 meshes along spore length and 3-8 meshes across, the alveolar walls 3-5(7) microns tall, "some spores subalveolate or with irregular reticulation"; asci 60-80 x 50-60 microns, "subglobose to broadly ellipsoid, pedicel lacking to prominent", the walls up to 1 micron thick, colorless in KOH, yellow in Melzer''s reagent; peridium 200-350 microns thick, pellis a pseudoparenchyma, 100-290 microns thick, the cells 7-30 microns wide, "versiform to angular or isodiametric, grouped to form warts, yellowish to reddish brown in KOH", the walls 2-3 microns thick, dermatocystidia 35-85 x 2-4 microns, colorless, "clustered, tapered to the tip, some sinuate, fragile, thin-walled, septate", subpellis 40-90 microns thick, of colorless, periclinal to interwoven hyphae 3-8 microns wide at the septa; gleba of colorless, interwoven, thin-walled hyphae, 2-5 microns wide at the septa, the cells commonly inflated to 6-15 microns wide
Habitat / Range
under Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas-fir), May and November; ectomycorrhizae belonging to T. beyerlei have been sequenced from truffle orchards in BC, Canada, established with Corylus and Quercus spp. that had been inoculated with T. melanosporum (Shannon Berch pers. comm. to Guevara(1))
Similar Species
Tuber levissimum has a smooth peridium 420-840 microns thick, and the spores in 1-spored asci measure 36-58 x 32-52 microns according to Gilkey(1939), whereas T. beyerlei has a granulose peridium 200-350 microns thick, and spores in 1-spored asci measure 37-47 x 32-40 microns.
