365 Urban Species. #298: Pear-shaped Puffball

[urbpan]

Photos by cottonmanifesto. Location: Olmsted Park.
Urban species #298: Pear-shaped puffball Lycoperdon pyriforme

Puffballs are familiar to most people, but it may be surprising to see them erupting from wood, rather than from grassy soil. But while most fungi that produce puffballs feed on organic matter within fertile soil, the pear-shaped puffball's fungus digests wood. When the fungus is ready to reproduce, clusters of puffballs appear on the top of the dead wood. They have short stems, presumably helping to lift them out of the reach of smaller, lazier insects and slugs, and to give their spores a centimeter boost. The stem gives these mushrooms their inverted pear shape for which they are named. When the puffballs are fresh, their inner flesh is white and edible, if rather a small morsel for most bipedal foragers. Their surface is pebbly or "gem-studded"; a very similar puffball that grows on soil is called the gem-studded puffball Lycoperdon gemmatum. As the puffball's flesh matures, it yellows, then browns, becoming inedible. When the spores are ready for dispersal, an aperture forms at the top of the mushroom. Puffs of "smoke" composed of hundreds of thousands of spores blow out of the aperture when a raindrop falls on the puffball's now leathery hide. Similar results can be obtained by lightly poking or tapping the puffball. The genus name of many species of puffballs comes from an imaginative description of the reproductive discharge: Lycoperdon means "wolf fart."







Some unknown substance, perhaps a mold, created a Santa beard on this cluster of puffballs.

Comments

[calypso72]

My parents always got so excited when we found some puffballs so we could pick them and cook 'em up for dinner. Mmmm... delish.

Wolf fart? That doesn't sound so appetizing anymore....

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

They're edible?!

I had no idea. We used to just step on them as kjids to make them go >poof< or throw them at each other and leave marks on our shirts. LOL!

We were simple minded children.

[calypso72]

Before they go to "seed" - yes!