Be Careful Out There... (on the internet)

I was originally attracted to this article because of its headline - "Puff ball mushroom found near Littlefork."

I was thinking, "So?" I mean it's a little like, "Stop sign found at end of street!" But I figured it must be an INSANELY HUGE puffball... the size of a Volkswagen, eating small children, that kind of thing. I was severely disappointed to see it was a basketball-sized puffball but nothing worthy of its own headline.

Reading the article I was surprised to see:

"All puffball mushrooms are edible, although not all are considered choice."

Huh? Well perhaps you could twist that to be true. Many puffballs are edible... for a short while. But they often turn from white to yellowish, to greenish, to brownish in a short time and you don't want to experiment with these changes in color. In addition, Scleroderma citrinium (Common Earthball, pictured at right) and Scleroderma areolatum are poisonous. Now Puffballs are not some scientifically determined type of mushroom. You could easily make an argument that Puffballs and Earthballs are different (dealing with texture and how spores in each are distributed), but if you own any mushroom field guide you know they are always listed together... often on the same page. No field guide I own makes a hard distinction.

The article wraps up by saying:

"Puffballs that resemble hard boiled eggs are decaying, and not edible. Discolored puffballs should also be avoided."

Perhaps that sentence should have been appended to the previous one I listed. The lesson? Once again, be careful out there... and everywhere.

You can find some good info and additional pictures of various Puffballs (and Earthballs!) here at mushroomexpert.com.