Cinnabar Red Cinnabar (Calostoma cinnabarina) photo and description

Cinnabar Red Cinnabar (Calostoma cinnabarina)

• Mitremyces cinnabarinus
• Red-breasted brick-red

Cinnabar-red redwort is an inedible fungus-gasteromycete of the False raindrop family. It is distinguished by a bright red color of the fruiting body, in young mushrooms it is covered with a thick gelatinous coating. Distributed and common in North America; Found in Our Country in the south of Primorsky Krai.

The fruit body is round or tuberous, 1-2 cm in diameter, in young mushrooms from red to red-orange, fading to pale orange or light brown as the remnants of the outer shell disappear, in young mushrooms it is enclosed in a three-layer shell. In the early stages it develops underground.

The false stalk is well developed, 1,5-4 cm long, 10-15 mm in diameter, porous, pitted, surrounded by a gelatinous membrane; formed by densely intertwined hyaline mycelial strands. As the fungus matures, the stem lengthens, lifting the fruiting body above the substrate; at the same time, the outer shell of the fruiting body is torn (in the direction from the stem to the top, or from the top to the stem) and peels off or falls off in fragments.

The spore mass in young mushrooms is white; in mature mushrooms it becomes yellowish or light brown, powdery.

Widely distributed and common in North America – in the east and southeast of the United States, in Mexico, Costa Rica, in the southern part of the range reaching Colombia. In the Eastern Hemisphere, it is found in China, Taiwan, and India. On the territory of the Federation, it is found in the south of Primorsky Krai, in oak forests. As a rare species, it is listed in the Red Book of Primorsky Krai (as of October 01, 2001).

There is no similarity with other mushrooms. It differs from other fungi-gasteromycetes in a bright red shell and the presence of a brightly colored peristome at the top of the fruiting body.

Inedible.