Key Features:

• Mushroom potato-like, buff to tan, brown, or red-brown (darker when mature).

• Exterior without warts.

• Interior solid, very firm, marbled with veins.

• Interior white when young, dark brown or reddish mar- bled with whitish veins when mature.

• Stalk absent.

• Odor at maturity strong and somewhat garlicky.

• Growing underground in association with Douglas-fir.

 Other Features: Maturing very slowly (usually several weeks); typically 1/2-2" broad (occasionally larger); exterior often cracked at maturity; skin thin.

 Where: Buried in the ground near or under Douglas-fir in forests or on Christmas tree farms; West Coast, especially common in Oregon. Several can often be found in the same area by gently raking the soil.

 Edibility: Some chefs rate it on a par with the famous white truffle of Italy.

 Note: Truffles are small, difficult-to-identify, underground mushrooms whose spores are disseminated by rodents and other foraging mammals that sniff them out. Small excavations in the forest humus are often a sign that truffles or truffle-like mushrooms are in the vicinity. This truffle is best recognized by its habitat, and when fully mature, by its odor.