Species flashcards

Description

Fruiting body: Usually 1–5 cm across, developing underground, globular to irregularly tuberous. The surface is blackish, dark brown, reddish-brown or rusty, covered with small flattened polygonal warts, and may therefore appear almost smooth.

Fertile layer: Located inside the fruiting body. The gleba is whitish-brown at first, later grey-brown to purple-brown, marbled with numerous broad, white, winding and branching veins.

Stem: No stem is present.

Flesh: Fleshy, firm but brittle. The smell is strongly garlic-like when young and later onion-like; the flavour is pleasantly strong and aromatic.

Spores: The spore mass is yellow-brown, becoming reddish-brown at maturity. Spores are elliptical and very large, 42–85 × 30–42 µm, with an irregular fine reticulate-alveolate ornamentation; the mesh is 3–5 µm high.

Occurrence: Fruits from September to December, chiefly on calcareous clay or silty-clay soils. A mycorrhizal species associated with oak, hornbeam, poplar, willow and hazel.

Edibility: An excellent edible mushroom. Its strong garlic aroma makes it particularly valued fresh or as a seasoning for truffle dishes.

Lookalikes: It may resemble summer truffle, winter truffle and Istrian truffle. Flattened warts, a strong garlic scent and exceptionally large spores aid identification.

Note: Tuber derives from the Latin tumere, meaning to swell. Macrosporum combines Greek words for large and spore, referring to the conspicuously large spores of this species.

Species description: Scientifically described by Carlo Vittadini in 1831.

Taxonomy

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

• Species: Tuber macrosporum
• Authority: Vittadini (1831)
• English name: Large-spored truffle
• Ecological status: mycorrhizal
• Edibility: edible