Species flashcards

Description

Fruiting body: 5–12 cm across, usually developing underground, irregularly tuberous and potato-like. The surface is wrinkled and bumpy, whitish-grey, yellow-brown or rusty brown.

Fertile layer: Located inside the fruiting body. The gleba is whitish at first, later grey-brown, and marbled with winding pale veins.

Stem: No stem is present.

Flesh: Hard, cartilaginous and whitish to cream-coloured when young, later becoming grey-brown. The smell is initially weak, later stronger and maize-like, or unpleasantly musty in old specimens.

Spores: The spore mass is brown. Spores are globose, 16–22 µm in diameter and ornamented with spines, usually 3–5 µm high.

Occurrence: Fruits from June to October in clayey or slightly sandy soils of hills and mountains, usually below ground. A mycorrhizal species, especially associated with spruce, beech and hornbeam.

Edibility: Conditionally edible. Consume only after thorough cooking for at least 20 minutes; raw or insufficiently cooked specimens may cause gastrointestinal upset.

Lookalikes: It can resemble the sand truffle, Istrian truffle and several false truffles.

Note: Choiromyces combines Greek words meaning young pig and mushroom. Meandriformis refers to the winding, marbled veins of the gleba, resembling the course of the Maeander river.

Species description: Scientifically described by Carlo Vittadini in 1831.

Taxonomy

1. PhylumAscomycota
2. ClassPezizomycetes
3. OrderPezizales
4. FamilyTuberaceae
5. GenusChoiromyces

• Species: Choiromyces meandriformis
• Authority: Vittadini (1831)
• English name: White truffle
• Ecological status: mycorrhizal
• Edibility: conditionally edible