Calostoma fuscum (Common Prettymouth)

The fruit body consists of a more or less globular sac of powdery spores atop a broad stem. The brown spore sac is about a centimetre in diameter and has a star-shaped mouth, initially bright red. At first there is a hemispherical cap over the spore sac and that cap falls off in one piece.

The stem (several centimetres long and 1 or 2 in diameter) looks like a braided bundle of roughened cords and has a rubbery texture (at least initially or in moist conditions).

Found growing from the ground, often in wet forests but in the Canberra area it has turned up on the eastern slope of Black Mountain.