Apart from the truffles with commercial and culinary value, there are the following types of non-commercial and culinary value:

 

 

 

Tuber excavatum Tuber rufum

Tuber excavatum (Durone white truffle)

 

Macroscopic features

 

Color: From pale yellow when immature to dark brown with orange or red manifestations.

Shape: Spherical to ovoid, slight to very lobed where appropriate diameter of about 4.6-6.7 cm, with a strong and characteristic hollow at the base (basal cavity).

Peridium: Not too thin, pale brown color open to the mustard. Structure consisting of spherical - polygonal elements of various dimensions.

Gleba (rococo interior decoration): Fleshy and hard to sterile areas thin and oriented towards the cavity (basal cavity). Fertile areas with several ascospores, pale brown color. Sterile off-white areas.

Odour: Mild between mushroom and flowers.

 

Microscopic features

 

Sacs: Ball, slightly oval with a small stalk where appropriate, consisting of 1-4 spores.

Spores: Slightly oval to spherical dimensions 30ch52 - 22ch37 microns, closed perimeter (without holes) with villages and small pins at the periphery. The average number of partitions - cell in the maximum dimension is 3-4 (5) about partitions.

 

This kind of truffle is one of the most famous in Greece with a large spread width both at altitude and in forest species with which they coexist. It is also a problem in artificial plantations with strong antagonistic action against a commercial species such as precious white and Melanosporum  truffle.

Finally, it's basic features are the consistency of the truffle (hard as rock) and the intense and deep cavity at the base.

 

Tuber rufum

 

Macroscopic Characteristics

 

Color: This species occurs in Greece with many shades from light brown to yellowish, brick, brown-black, even black.

Shape: Spherical to ellipsoidal.

Peridium: Not too thin. Cells of peridium are spherical and polygonal shape.

Gleba (rococo interior decoration): Fleshy, coherent. Sterile regions of two colors and sizes. Limited number of subtle off-white color and more and thicker sterile areas transparent gray color (the color of silicone) that flow around the peridio with a very thick area. Fertile areas light brown to brownish, which occupy most of the clot.

Smell: Intense resembles vermicelli.

 

Microscopic Features

 

Winds: Ellipsoid to irregular stemless containing 1-5 seeds.

Spores: Ellipsoid, dimensions-tions 17,58-40,13 x 14,43-25,77 m. spore surface covered with needle-like spikes.

 

This kind of truffle is one of the most famous in Greece with a large spread width and in areas and species of forest trees. Also, the features considered the consistency of the truffle, their very small dimensions, the reddish colors and perhaps most important, the sterile regions of two colors to clot, which is not found in other species of the genus Tuber.

 

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