Fruiting body a stalked or very rarely sessile sporangium. Sporotheca cup-shaped to nearly cyclindrical or globose. Stalk cylindrical or tapering upward. Hypothallus usually discoid, membranous, often inconspicuous. Peridium cartilaginous, more or less encrusted with lime, dehiscence operculate or circumscissile to irregular, persistent below as a usually deep calyculus. Columella usually absent. Capillitium consisting of a network of calcareous nodes connected by hyaline filaments, often aggregated in the center to form a pseudocolumella. Spores free, dark in mass.
Thirteen species of Craterium have been described (Lado 2001); four of these are known from New Zealand.