Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic

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**On This Page:** Description, Look-Alikes, Habitat, Season, Edibility
Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic (Calostoma cinnabarina)

**On This Page:** Description, Look-Alikes Habitat, Season, Edibility
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Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic sculpture, acrylic paints
Description This bright red-orange false puffball (not related to true puffballs) stands on a stalk. It's covered with a thick, clear jelly. The jelly disappears and the color fades when the mushroom gets old, as depicted to the left. The mushroom is 3/8 to 5/8 inches wide, 1-1/4 to 2 inches tall. There's a cross-like opening at the tip of the puffball-like spore sac.
Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic
Look-Alikes On a tour with the Manitoga Day Camp in Garrison, NY, councilors who spotted these bright red gelatinous globes embedded in the earth (before the stalks had elevated them), warned the kids not to disturb the "salamander eggs" (Of course, as amphibians, salamanders lay their eggs in water)!
Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic, very young specimen The stalk has yet to appear.
Habitat Look for the stalked puffball-in-aspic in the woods. It grows throughout the eastern half of North America.
Season This common mushroom comes up in the spring, summer, and fall. Old specimens last into the winter.
Edibility Although it contains no poisons, this mushroom is not edible.