Truffle Genus: Carbomyces

Carbomyces longii ascospore

Kingdom: Fungi Phylum: Ascomycota Order: Pezizales Family: Pezizaceae

Spore Characters

Surface: Smooth to ornamented with spines and rods.
Shape and Size: Globose to ellipsoid, 9.5-19 in diameter or 17-19 x 11-19 µm excluding ornamentation.
Wall: Single, up to 1 µm thick.
Color in Water: Pale brown.
Melzer's Reaction: Not distinctive.
Comments: Carbomyces longii is distinguished from the other two species by its ellipsoid spores.

View photos of Carbomyces spores

Sporocarp Characters

Shape and Size: Globose to subglobose or turbinate, 2-4 cm in diameter.
Peridium: White to cream or dark brown, fragile.
Gleba: Brown to pale brown with white to olive veins, solid with spore-bearing pockets.
Odor: Not recorded.
Comments: Most specimens of Carbomyces have been found dried and blowing along the surface of the desert. Little is known about the ecology of this genus (Gilkey 1954; Trappe and Weber, 2001).

Name Derivation

Named by distinguished mycologist Dr. Helen Gilkey (1954), (1886-1972) from Latin carbo- (carbon) and Greek -myces (fungus), the "carbonized fungus" in reference to the dried peridium that has a "texture, somewhat like that of carbonized wood."

Distribution

In sandy soils from New Mexico to southern California, often lying loose on soil.
Season: September though April, probably strongly dependent on rainfall.
Species known from North Temperate Deserts: Three, C. emergens, C. gilbertsonii, and C. longii.

Keys and Descriptions

Gilkey, 1954; Trappe and Weber, 2001.