This stalked puffball begins development within a gelatinous transparent exoperidium which is soon disrupted by the developing spore sac, exposing a red inner part of the exoperidium. Eventually this too falls away revealing the mature endoperidium with five (usually) cinnabar red, raised rdiges at the center of which an ostiole develops for spore dispersal. Widespread in the eastern USA south through Costa Rica to Colombia.