Gyromitra californica

With a broad, olive-brown to grey-brown cap and pinkish, ribbed stipe, Gyromitra californica is one of prettiest and distinctive false morels. It occurs commonly in the Pacific Northwest, but sparsely in California. This false morel was historically placed in Helvella, and more recently in Gyromitra. Harmaja (1976), transferred it to Pseudorhizina citing a number of morphological and chemical differences, the most obvious being a ribbed cap with a tomentose undersurface, pinkish stipe, and smaller spores with oil drops that are variable in size and number. Recent DNA evidence shows that is species is nested within Gyromitra and belongs there. Gyromitra sphaerospora of Eastern North America is very similar, differing as the species suggests, by globose spores.