Puffballs

A gleba which is powdery on maturity is a feature of true puffballs, stalked puffballs and earthstars.

Snowy white puffballs, which almost look like supermarket button mushrooms, also have poisonous twins.

At this point, I can often point out common mushrooms such as chanterelles, chicken of the woods, reishi, turkey tails and puffballs.

Luckily not all bubble skirts are made equal, so as much as the mini puffballs are in fashion for these last few warmer weeks, expect the midi and maxi lengths (think: deflated balloon, but chic) to last well into autumn.

He'll leave that for you labradoodle loving snowflakes or you poodle pandering puffballs.

All false puffballs are inedible, as they are tough and bitter to taste.

It is for this reason that all puffballs gathered in mushroom hunting should be cut in half lengthwise.

None of the stalked puffballs are edible as they are tough and woody mushrooms.

Occasionally, basidiospores are not formed and parts of the "basidia" act as the dispersal agents, e.g. the peculiar mycoparasitic jelly fungus, Tetragoniomyces or the entire "basidium" acts as a "spore", e.g. in some false puffballs ( Scleroderma ).

On the other hand, there are a number of false puffballs that look similar to the true ones.

Puffballs and similar forms are thought to have evolved convergently (that is, in numerous independent events) from Hymenomycetes by gasteromycetation, through secotioid stages.

Puffballs lack a stalk, but may have a supporting base.

Stalked puffballs do have a stalk that supports the gleba.

The fungi are called puffballs because clouds of brown dust-like spores are emitted when the mature fruitbody bursts, or in response to impacts such as those of falling raindrops.

The puffballs were previously treated as a taxonomic group called the Gasteromycetes or Gasteromycetidae, but they are now known to be a polyphyletic assemblage.

The spores of puffballs are statismospores rather than ballistospores, meaning they are not actively shot off the basidium.