Fruiting body a tiny stalked sporangium (one species lacks a stalk), the stalk varaible in length. Globose head of the fruiting body comprises a network of very fine threads connected at well-defined nodes. Spores variable in colour. Thirteen species in New Zealand. Species are diffcult to identify without fresh material.

Note that only those species listed below have images or descriptions available through the Virtual Mycota.

Fruiting body a stalked sporangium or (in one species) consisting of more or less sessile and aggregated sporangia, sometimes to the point of forming a pseudoaethalium. Sporotheca globose to pyriform or rarely ellipsoid to obovoid or subcylindrical. Stalk ranging from short and stout to long and slender. Hypothallus usually not apparent, membranous when present. Peridium fugacious except for a network (usually referred to as the peridial net) consisting of more or less sharply defined nodes and connecting filaments in the upper part and, in most species, a calyculus in the lower part, the latter usually prominent but sometimes greatly reduced or replaced by radiating ribs; dictydine granules present on the remnants of the peridium and sometimes on the spores. Spores yellow, brown, red or purple in mass.
From a taxonomic standpoint, Cribraria is one of the more difficult genera of myxomycetes, and identification of a particular specimen to species usually requires mature but still relatively fresh material. Approximately 40 species have been described worldwide (Lado 2001), and 13 of these have been recorded from New Zealand.