National Museum of Natural Science

For those unfamiliar with mushroom identification, it is possible for Physalacria corticola to be mistaken for slime mold due to its very small body of less than 1 cm. Under a magnifying glass, you will see that its white spherical to disorganized head is hollow. The genus Physalacria was first proposed by American mycologist Charles Horton Peck in the book Fungi in Wrong Genera published in 1882. Physalacria refers to a vesicular head. To date, this genus has been reported to include more than 30 species distributed in the Americas, Oceania, Africa, and Asia. In Asia, its distribution is in tropical areas.