This feature relates to distinctive shapes of spores visible in side and/or face view, independent of the ratio of spore length to width [see Spore shape (ratio length/width))].

Spores are in side view when the hilar appendage is clearly in focus, along with the entire spore outline, and the hilar appendage is to one side (not along the mid-line, which is face view). Remember that spores are three-dimensional objects. For example, an ellipsoid spore will be shaped rather like an Australian rules or rugby football, and if this is floating in the mounting medium, it could float in a variety of orientations. Sometimes the hilar appendage is in focus, but the other end of the spore will not be in focus because the long axis of the spore is at an angle in relation to the plane of focus. In order to make an accurate assessment of the shape of a non-spherical spore, the long axis of the spore needs to be lying parallel to the plane of focus.

The shape in side and face view is usually similar, but differs for bean- to sausage-shaped spores and for amygdaliform spores (which are only these shapes in side view) and in limoniform spores (which are only this shape in face view).

Choose this state if: in side and face view, spores are rounded. In side view the spores are bilaterally symmetrical (with two more or less equal halves on either side of the long axis passing through the apex), and in face view spores are symmetrical from one end to the other (more or less equal across a medial line at right angles to the long axis).

Compare to amygdaliform where in side view the spore is narrower on one side of the long axis, and to ovoid to pyriform where in face view the spore is fatter at one end than the other.