My Friend the Puffball

A couple of months ago I looked out one of our windows and saw something round and white nestled on the ground. Squeaking in excitement, I grabbed my camera and bounced out the door because there was only one thing it could be!! Zooming around the side of the house, I came screeching to a halt in front of exactly what I thought: a puffball!! YAY!!

Talk about a weird fungus. These things look like a mushroom golfball, with no stem. They get their name for the cloud of brown spores that are emitted when the skin eventually dries enough to split and break open.

Some young puffballs are edible and tender enough to eat, but others are poisonous. The best advice is to not eat them unless you're positive of the species. There are a few species of puffballs that have stalks, and also closely related to puffballs are earthstars, which grow on our property! Finally, in Tibet, puffballs were once as a source of ink by burning them, grinding the ash into a powder, adding water and a glue-like liquid to make a black ink! How cool is that?! :)

If you would like to know more about puffballs, Wiki has a great page with some cool pictures here: Wiki: Puffball