Helvella atra

Medullary excipulum with hyaline filamentous hyphae densely interwoven, mixed with shorter, inflated hyphae.

Ectal excipulum with globose, vesiculose, pyriform to short cylindrical hyphae, moderately thick-walled, with faint brownish intracellular pigment inside.

Asci cylindrical, uniseriate, 8-spored, up to 250 µm long, inamyloid in Melzer's reagent.

Paraphyses filiform, sparsely septate, with abundant granular internal content, with an apical swelling up to 7 µm wide, projecting only very slightly above the asci.

Ascospores ellipsoidal, hyaline, thin- to moderately thick-walled, containing a large central lipid droplet and smaller scattered guttules at the poles.