Calostoma cinnabarinum is a species of gasteroid fungus in the family Sclerodermataceae. It is known by several common names, including stalked puffball-in-aspic and gelatinous stalked-puffball. The fruit body has a distinctive color and overall appearance, featuring a layer of yellowish jelly surrounding a bright red, spherical head.
About Calostoma cinnabarinum in brief
Calostoma cinnabarinum is a species of gasteroid fungus in the family Sclerodermataceae. It is known by several common names, including stalked puffball-in-aspic and gelatinous stalked-puffball. The fruit body has a distinctive color and overall appearance, featuring a layer of yellowish jelly surrounding a bright red, spherical head. It grows naturally in eastern North America, Central America, northeastern South America, and East Asia. Although eaten or used in folk medicine in some areas, it is typically considered inedible. Despite its appearance and common name, C. cinnabaranum is not related to the true puffballs or to species in the genus Podaxis. It is also unrelated to earthstars and stinkhorns. Its epithet cinnábari refers to its red color, like that of a dragon’s blood. In Spanish it is known as Nahuatlma scleroderma Gyroporus and Nahuathorma scleroderma scelerodorus. Its common name in Mexico is “Cinnabarina”, which means “red dragon” or “red-coloured dragon” in Spanish. It has a long taxonomic history that at various times confused it with each of those groups, until the advent of molecular phylogenetics. In 1811, Louis Bosc did not mention the earlier works when describing it as Lycoperdon heterogeneum, although he also suggested it should be placed in its own genus.
An 1825 paper by Edward Hitchcock referred to the species with the entirely novel binomial name Gyropodium coccineum; although Hitchcock claimed this name was established by Lewis Schweinitz, he admitted that no such description had been previously published, and the name and its claimed origin are considered doubtful. In 1897, Charles Edward Burnapapah published a new description of C. lutescens, making a division between the two similar species that has not been substantially revised since. The type species is Cinnabara lutescens; it is also known as C. lutecens and C. cinnaboarina. It can grow on the ground in deciduous forests, where it forms mycorrhizal associations with oaks. Its spores measure 14–20 micrometers long by 6–9 µm across, and have a pattern of small pits, producing a net-like appearance. The innermost layer of the head is the gleba, containing clear or slightly yellowish elliptical spores, measuring 1.5 to 4 cm tall. In the Spanish vernacular include “stalked puffinic” and “aspic puffy-stalking puffy” It can also be found in central Mexico and northeastern South American, as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. Its name is derived from the Ancient Greek word kinnabari, meaning “red color” and refers to the color of the fungus.
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This page is based on the article Calostoma cinnabarinum published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
