Truffle Genus: Hysterangium
 Hysterangium coriaceum basidiospore scale = 10 µm |
Kingdom: Fungi Phylum: Basidiomycota Order: Hysterangiales Family: Hysterangiaceae |
Spore Characters
Surface: Smooth to minutely ornamented, usually enveloped in a wrinkled to loose epispore.
Shape and Size: Longitudinally symmetric, rod-shaped to narrowly ellipsoid or fusoid. 13-30 x (3-) 4-8 µm; attachment straight, inconspicuous to truncate-cupped.
Wall: Single; <0.5 µm to 1.5 µm thick.
Color in Water: Hyaline to pale brown-yellow.
Melzer's Reaction: Not distinctive.
Comments: The smallest-spored Hysterangium species will key out the same as the largest-spored Trappea species. The two genera, however, do not actually overlap in spore size. Most Hysterangium spores have a distinct, often wrinkled epispore, a character which separates them from Rhizopogon species with spores of the same size.
View photos of Hysterangium spores
Sporocarp Characters
Shape and Size: Subglobose to globose or irregular, 0.5-3 cm in diameter. Often with a large rhizomorph emanating from the base or attached to base and sides.
Peridium: Thin and membranous to up to 1 mm thick. White to salmon pink, yellow, brown, or purple. In many species, staining pink to brown where bruised. Often readily separable from the gleba. In many species, giving rise to numerous hyphae and rhizomorphs on the base and sides of sporocarps or overall.
Gleba: Pink to gray, gray-green, olive, or pale brown, with small to prominent, usually labyrinthine chambers and a poorly to strongly developed, dendroid, gelatinous to cartilaginous, gray to red-brown columella.
Odor: Not distinctive to fruity, wine-like, chlorine-like or nauseous-sweet.
View photos of Hysterangium sporocarps