Fruiting body a stalked sporangium, gregarious, 1–2 mm high. 0.4–0.7 mm in diameter. Sporotheca globose, erect or nodding, at first nut-brown and then becoming dusky. Stalk subulate, rugulose, dark brown, 0.8–2.1 mm high. Hypothallus membranous, brown, discoid or sometimes expanding and extending to a number of sporangia. Peridial net irregular, consisting of broad, flattened-pulvinate, angular and branching, pale nodes and slender connecting filaments with few free ends. Calyculus prominent, occupying two thirds to two-fifths of the sporotheca, brown, marked by delicate, radiating lines of dictydine granules with irregular, coarsely dentate margin; dictydine granules dark, 0.5–2.0 µm in diameter. Spores bright yellow to ochraceous in mass, colourless by transmitted light, minutely roughened or warted, 5–6 µm in diameter. Plasmodium slate-grey or greenish.

 Reported from Europe, Asia, North America, Australia, and South America (Martin & Alexopoulos 1969, Farr 1976, Mitchell 1995). First reported from New Zealand by Rawson (1937), based on a specimen collected in Dunedin. SPECIMENS EXAMINED: PDD 161326, 16179, 16734a.

 Decaying wood.

 Martin & Alexopoulos (1969), Nannenga-Bremekamp (1991), Neubert et al. (1993), Lado & Pando (1997).

 This species has not always been distinguished from Cribraria aurantiaca, a situation that does not allow its world distribution to be determined with any degree of certainty.