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Species Information
Summary: Most of the stinkhorns are covered under the Clubs category, but Clathrus ruber clearly cannot be considered a Club-like fungus. Features of this stinkhorn include 1) origin from a white "egg" which ruptures forming a volva, 2) mature fruiting body like an orange to red latticed ball, and 3) olive brown spore slime with a powerful stench.
It has been reported from BC (in Redhead), OR (Paul Whitney via R. Bishop, pers. comm), found in CA (Arora), and recorded from Azores, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Russia, and Yugoslavia, (Dring).
Fruiting body: 5-14cm high, at first a round to somewhat flattened or knobby "egg" up to 6cm wide, when mature ''round to oval latticed ball or netlike framework with large polygonal or elongated "windows"'', branches "bright pink to red to orange or pale orange, and often paler toward the base; flattened, hollow, very fragile, minutely chambered (like a sponge) and transversely ribbed or wrinkled on outer surfaces"; inner surfaces covered with spore slime; peridium white and membranous; smooth becoming wrinkled and grooved, with inner gelatinous layer, rupturing to form a volva as a thick loose white sack, usually with thick mycelial cord or cords attached; spore mass mucilaginous, very foul-smelling, coating inside of lattice-work, "olive to olive-brown or drying blackish"; stem absent or rudimentary; non-poisonous according to some sources, but harmful when eaten (at least raw) according to other authorities, (Arora), egg nearly spherical to pear-shaped, up to 6cm in diameter, cream to grayish fawn, smooth but marked by reticulations, rooting by a thick mycelial strand, dehiscence irregular from the top, leaving the lower meshes encased in a volva; fruitbody expanding to about 12 x 9cm, obovoid, with "a more or less regular network of meshes, numbering up to about 30", more or less isodiametric in upper part but longer vertically where partially hidden by volva; arms salmon pink on outside, shading to scarlet on inside, up to 1-5cm wide at top of the fruitbody, tapering almost to nothing in lower part, triangular in section with outer face almost flat, with a slight tendency to be transversely wrinkled and sometimes with a faint longitudinal groove, lateral faces curved with frequent large openings; spore mass attached to the inner surface of the arms, olive-green before dehiscence, becoming olive-brown, odor strong of decaying meat, (Dring)
Microscopic: spores 5-6 x 1.5-2.5 microns, oblong, smooth, (Arora), spores 4-6 x 1.5-2 microns, bacilloid, (Dring)
Habitat / Range
"solitary to densely gregarious or clustered in soil, wood chips, rich humus, etc.", (Arora), single or in small groups in woods, in grasslands, or in greenhouses, spring to late summer, (Lincoff), summer to fall (Buczacki)
