September Mushroom of the Month: Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic, Calostoma cinnabarinum
🍄⭐The September mushroom of the month is the Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic, Calostoma cinnabarinum
👏 Congrats to Hannah for guessing it right and winning a membership to the society! 🎉
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Not quite a puffball
Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic may sound like a puffball, but it isn’t. Long mistaken for a puffball, earthstar, or stinkhorn, Calostoma cinnabarinum is now classified in the order Boletales, despite little resemblance to its relatives. Its name “cinnabarinum” comes from the Greek kinnábari, for its vivid cinnabar-red color, like dragon’s blood. Common names include red slimy-stalked puffball, aspic puffball, gelatinous-stalked puffball, and “hot lips.” In central Mexico, it’s called “orchid fungus” in Spanish (hongo orquídea) and Nahuatl (huang noono).
A fungi defined by its slime
A key trait of this mushroom is its “aspic”, a gelatinous veil that surrounds the young fruit before sloughing off. The goo has been compared to amphibian eggs or “small red tomatoes in jelly.” As it matures, a whitish stalk emerges while the red tip elongates and fades. Mycorrhizal with oaks, it grows alone or in groups, often in moss beds or wet lowlands, from spring through fall. Its range includes eastern North America, Texas, possibly the Southwest, as well as Central and South America, with reports from Asia. It’s especially common at higher elevations; the described collections are from North Carolina.
Can you eat it?
Few would be tempted to eat this mushroom, and most field guides list it as inedible. Yet a study of mestizo descendants of the Otomi people in Tenango de Doria, Mexico, found that immature specimens, called yemitas, were once eaten raw—especially by children—though this is no longer common. The gleba is described as mild in taste, not sweet despite local recollections. A 1986 ethnomycological study in Veracruz recorded its use to treat gastrointestinal distress. Still, other folk beliefs warn it is poisonous, citing its bright color as a sign of danger.
