This giant puffball is larger than a basketball. (The other thing is a drum).
Tuesday September 29, 2015
Bill: Look Outside. What’s that large white thing on the front lawn? I didn’t see that yesterday.
Ruth: It looks like a dead animal.
Bill: Or is it somebody’s misplaced beachball? Let’s go out and see.
Both: Wow! It’s a giant puffball. Let’s see what our mushroom book says about puffballs.
Field Book of Common Mushrooms by William S. Thomas – page 288 : “Puffballs are the safest of all fungi for the beginner to eat, since none of them are poisonous. If they are white and firm on the inside they are fit to be eaten.” . . . [Calvatia cyathiformis, the pasture puffball] is “more or less globular, whitish gray or brown” and “from 2 to 6-inches in diameter. The common puffball is the largest of the Eastern States with the exception of the rare giant puffball which is the size of a man’s head or greater.”
