Basidiomata variously shaped, convoluted and lobed. Peridium white to pale grey, glabrous, thick and gelatinised, not separable from gleba. Gleba green to olive, with elongate to irregular locules filled with spores, not extending into all lobes. Basidia hyaline, 8-spored. Spores statismosporic, orthotropic, smooth, lacking an utricle, ellipsoid, sterigmal attachment inconspicuous, hyaline in KOH singly. No distinctive reaction to Melzer's reagent. Development angiocarpic, epigeous.

ETYMOLOGY: From Phallus, the stinkhorn genus, in reference to the phalloid-like spores and basidia, and from Latin lobatus, lobed, referring to the lobed structure of the basidioma. REMARKS: Monotypic, known only from New Zealand. The absence of sutures and the small spores place this genus in the Phallales near Gelopellis rather than Protubera. The very gelatinous nature of the species makes peridial details difficult to discern in KOH mounts of heat-dried specimens.

TYPE SPECIES: Phallobata alba Cunningham.

Peridium sessile, indebiscent, variously shaped, crowned with 1-several large single or branched sterile lobes; of two layers-an external looselywoven intricately-branched layer of hyphae (the exoperidium), and an inner thick gelatinized layer forming the body of the lobes ; attached to the substratum by numerous coarse rhizoids. Gleba permanent, consisting of numerous anastomozing gelatinized tramal plates, enclosing minute lacunae, divided by several stout trabeculae springing from a sterile base into several loculae ; hymenium lining the free surfaces of the tramae. Basidia 8-spored, subclavate or cylindrical, branched ; spores borne on short slender sterigmata (or subsessile), continuous, hyaline or tinted, smooth, uninucleate. Cystidia and other aberrant cells absent.

Habitat: Saprophytic upon decaying wood.