Massachusetts, Frost; Rhode Island, Bennett; Nebraska, Clements; New York, Peck, Rep. 24, 32, 51.
Edible. Unger, Cordier. Known to be edible. Peck.
H. in´fula Schaeff.—a head dress. Pileus hooded, in 2–4 irregular, drooping lobes, at length undulate, strongly adherent to the sides of the stem, reddish-brown or cinnamon more or less deep in color, whitish and downy underneath, 1.5–3 in. broad. Stem 1½-2½ in. long, ½ in. and more thick, usually smooth and even, sometimes compressed and irregularly pitted, pallid or tinged with red, covered with a white meal or down, solid when young but becoming hollow with age; asci cylindrical, apex somewhat truncate, 8-spored. Spores hyaline, smooth, continuous, elliptical, ends obtuse, 21–23×11–12µ Massee.
West Virginia, Pennsylvania. Decaying trunks, stumps and roots. McIlvaine.
Edible. Cooke, Curtis, Peck.
Equal to any Helvella.
VER´PA Swartz.
Verpa, a rod.
Ascophore stipitate, campanulate, attached to the tip of the stem and hanging down like a bell, surrounding but free from the side of the stem, regular, smooth or slightly wrinkled but not ribbed, persistent, thin, excipulum formed of interwoven, septate hyphæ, hymenium entirely covering the outer surface of the ascophore; asci cylindrical, 8-spored. Spores elliptical, continuous, hyaline or nearly so, 1-seriate; paraphyses septate. Stem elongated, stuffed.
Very closely allied to Helvella; distinguished by the ascophore being more regular in form, and more evidently deflexed round the apex of the stem, which it surrounds like a thimble on a finger, and is quite free from the stem except at the apex.