orange-brown to reddish-brown overall and often develops cracks on the surface. The peridium is 0.2–0.4 mm thick, and the surface texture ranges from relatively smooth to covered with tiny "hairs" that are more dense in the furrows, and more scattered on the exposed lobes. The gleba is solid; in youth the fertile tissue is whitish and marbled with mostly narrow, white, hypha-stuffed veins that emerge throughout the peridium to its surface. In maturity, the fertile tissue is light brown to brown from the color of the spores, but the marbling veins remain white. The odor and flavor of the flesh are mild in youth, but soon become strong, pungent and complex, or "truffly". The spores are ellipsoid to somewhat spindle-shaped with narrowed ends, and light brownish in color. The size of the spores varies depending upon the type of asci in which they develop: in one-spored asci they measure 42.5–62.5 by 17.5–30 µm; in two-spored asci they are 32.5–50 by 15–25 µm; in three-spored asci they are 27.5–45 by 15–25 µm; in four-spored asci they are 25–38.5 by 13–28 µm; in five-spored asci 28–34 by 22–25 µm (all sizes excluding surface ornamentation). The spore walls are 2–3 µm thick and are covered with a honeycomb-like (alveolate) network. The cavities of the honeycomb typically have five or six sides, and the corners form spines that are 5–7 µm tall by 0.5 µm thick. A "microreticulum" appears in some spores when the light microscope objective is focused on the optical cross section but not on the spore wall surface, or on scanning electron microscopy micrographs of the surface. Young asci range in shape from spherical to broadly ellipsoid to ovoid (egg-shaped) or pyriform (pear-shaped); sometimes the base of the ascus is narrowed like a stipe, and measures up to 15 by 7 µm. Mature asci are spherical to broadly ellipsoid or misshapen from the pressure of crowded spores within. They are hyaline (translucent), thin-walled, 60–85 by 65–75 µm, 1–4-(occasionally 5)-spored, and astipitate (without a stipe) at maturity. The peridiopellis (the cuticle of the peridium) is 200–300 µm thick plus or minus 80 µm of tightly interwoven hyphae that are 3–5 (sometimes up to 10) µm broad. The cells are short and have nearly hyaline walls that measure 0.5–1 µm thick; the interior veins emerge through the peridium the cells and often form a localized tissue of rounded cells up to 12 µm