It grows about four inches high; the top is round, with a fleshy and inflamed appearance; the stalk is out of all proportion in its thickness, being about two inches in diameter and of a livid white color; this, when broken, is full of a transparent gelatinous fluid, which smells like an egg in the last stage of rottenness.
This fungus looks like an unhealthy excrescence on the face of Nature, who, as though ashamed of the disgusting blemish, has thrown a veil over the defect.

The most exquisite fabric that can be imagined--a scarlet veil, like a silken net--falls over this ugly fungus, and, spreading like a tent at its base, it is there attached to the ground.
The meshes of this net are about as fine as those of a very delicate silk purse, and the gaudiness of the color and the size of the fungus make it a very prominent object, among the surrounding vegetation.

In fact, it is a diminutive, though perfect circular tent of net-work, the stem of the fungus forming the pole in the centre.
I shall never forget my first introduction to this specimen.

It was growing in an open forest, free from any underwood, land it seemed like a fairy bivouac beneath the mighty trees which overshadowed it.

Hardly believing my own eyes at so strange and exquisite a structure, I jumped off my horse and hastened to secure it.