Stalked Puffball-in-Aspic; Calostoma cinnabarina

Height: 1-7/8" - 3-1/4" This has to be one of the strangest fungi I've ever seen! They are covered in a thick, gelatinous, slimy pulp which is like "aspic." I found them growing in a coniferous forest in the Cherokee National Forest during an unusally wet July. The fungi will grow a stalk then release the spores. The species name, cinnabarina allude to the color of this puffball.