Truffle Genus: Schenella

Kingdom: Fungi Phylum: Basidiomycota Order:Geastrales Family:Geastraceae

Spore Characters

Surface: Finely verrucose.
Shape and Size: Ellipsoid to globose, up to 2 cm wide.
Wall:  Thin.
Color in Water: Brown.
Melzer's Reaction: None.
Comments: Immature spores are smooth and nearly hyaline.

View photos of Schenella spores

Sporocarp Characters

Shape and Size: Subglobose to globose, 1-4 cm in diameter.
Peridium: Felty to cottony, often with adherent debris.
Gleba: Powdery when mature, black; when immature consisting of tubes around a basal columella.
Odor: Indistinct.
Comments: The immature gleba is distinct among all truffles.

View photos of Schenella sporocarps

Name Derivation

 Named by American mycologist Thomas Huston McBride (1848-1934) who at first thought it to be a new genus of myxomycete (slime mold).

Distribution

Washington, Oregon, California, Mexico and Italy.

Season: Winter in Italy. Spring through autumn elsewhere.
Species known from North Temperate Forests: 3.

Keys and Descriptions

 Toledo and Castellano (1996) for Schenella simplex (as Pyrenogaster atrogleba), and S. pityphilous (as P. pityphilus).