Fruiting body: ovoid, gasteroid; 60 - 100 × 35 - 180 mm; pale almost white at first, becoming shiny with brown or black warts mottled with gold.  

Stipe: rooting stem cylindrical; 20 × 15 mm; black, often buried.

Flesh: granular ovoid cells ochraceous to umber, surrounded by paler tissue contained in a thick walled and dark staining gleba

Spore print: brown.

Spores: subglobose; echinulate (spiny).

Notes: very variable in both size and appearance, the relatively large, horse dung like gleba, shiny black or brown outer wall and partially or mostly buried pseudostem seem to be good characters. The spores are larger than those of P. microcarpus, and echinulate as opposed to reticulate in P. croceorrhizus.