SPORANGIA: Total height 5 to 20 mm. Sporangia cylindrical, obtuse, stalked, brownish purple or almost black, usually in large clusters, sometimes scattered.
PERIDIUM: membranous, persistent, purplish in the lower part, occasionally mottled with darker shades.
STALK: black, shining, 1 to 4 mm. high, rising from a brown, membranous hypothallus.
COLUMELLA: reaching nearly to the top of the sporangium.
CAPILLITIUM: of dark brown threads springing from all parts of the columella, combined into a loose network, the ultimate branches forming a delicate smooth or spinose surface-net with angular, unequal meshes, varying from 6-16 µm wide.
SPORES: grayish violet or brownish violet, 6-8 µm in diameter, faintly or strongly spinulose, the spines arranged in a more or less reticulate pattern.
PLASMODIUM: White
HABITAT: On dead wood.
DISTRIBUTION: Cosmopolitan, known from Auckland, Hawkes bay, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, Nelson, Mid Canterbury, Dunedin and Stewart Island.