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Puffballs
Autumn is the puffball season in Utah's mountain ranges. An exceptionally
moist summer makes it a banner year for these pouch fungi. Deer hunters
and hikers will find some large specimens in the aspen-fir associations,
as well as lower down in the oakbrush.
Puffballs are the fruiting organs which come to the surface from the
meshing threads, or mycelia, permeating the ground or the matter on which
they grow. Some may reach a diameter of several feet, and weigh five to
six pounds. All puffballs are edible, but some have little flavor to
recommend them. Specimens selected for food should be white and spongy
in the center. Sliced and fried, one puffball may make several meals for
a family. Some people prefer to parboil them in salt water before frying
them in butter or hot fat.
As a puffball matures, the "flesh" is transformed into a mass of yellowish
spores. These are borne on rudimentary basidia lining the compartmentized
pouch. Eventually the whole internal mass breaks down into a "dust" of
spores. At maturity, the leathery envelope breaks open, the various ways
depending upon the species. The spores may be beaten out by raindrops or
other contacts. Even a passing gust of air can suck out the spores in a
fine mist that resembles the ejection from an atomizer. Winds then may
spread such suspended spores over the entire earth. If proper conditions
are found for its germination, a spore produces a new mycelium.
The plant grows saprophytically on dead plant tissue in rich, organic soil.
The puffball illustrates one of the greatest biotic potentials of any
individual organism. A 5 pound, 3 ounce puffball yields about seven
trillion spores. If each of these found suitable conditions for growth,
the second generation would be 800 times the size of the earth. Puffballs
may form "fairy rings" similar to those of mushrooms and toadstools.
The family, Lycoperdaceae, includes the following genera:
- Scleroderma: not palatable;
- Lycoperdons, or true puffballs, often called "beaker"
puffballs, and better eaten when very young;
- Calvatia, the giant puffballs;
- Geasters, the peculiar little fungi called "earthstars",
quite common under the oak and pinyon trees.
-- by Wesley P. Larsen
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