The fungus was first described scientifically in 1805 by Johannes Baptista von Albertini and Lewis David de Schweinitz as Peziza carbonaria . Mordecai Cubitt Cooke illustrated the fruitbodies , spores , and asci in his 1879 work Mycographia , seu Icones fungorum . Figures of fungi from all parts of the world . In 1889 , Pier Andrea Saccardo transferred the fungus to the genus Geopyxis , giving the species its current name . Pustularia carbonaria , published by Heinrich Rehm in 1884 , is a synonym of G. carbonaria . Louis @-@ Joseph Grélet proposed the variety Geopyxis carbonaria var. sessilis in 1937 , referring to forms producing fruitbodies without a stalk , but the taxon is not considered to have independent taxonomic significance . In 1860 Miles Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis described the species Peziza lepida from collections made in Japan as part of the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition ( 1853 – 1856 ) . This taxoned was synonymized with G. carbonaria by Mien Rifai in 1968 , a taxonomic opinion corroborated by Donald Pfister about a decade later .