”This warty potato looking fungus is popping out right now found on the woodland floor most often around deciduous trees with which it is mycorhizal.
GeorgeFlavour Fred
There is a number of species that look similar to this which look similar including Leopard Earthball (Scleroderma areolatum), Potato Earthball (Scleroderma bovista) and Scaly Earthball (Scleroderma verrucosum), all are similar but the Scaly Earthball is darker in colour, Potato Earthball is often paler. All are poisonous.
The importance of knowing this is because it is the most common poisoning because of its similarity to a puffball which would be pure white on the inside which this is not. By cutting it open its easy to see the difference as it is often black like in this video although when the are very young that can be lilac/pale white very briefly – as in profile image. This is before the inside becomes dark & powdery as the spores develop and get distributed with a puff in the same way as puffballs. Lycoperdon is the genus of puffball known as the Wolfs Fart Mushroom (lycos meaning wolf and perdomai meaning to fart).
The Earthball are all poisonous and will cause gastrointestinal distress so should be avoided completely.
On occasions you’ll see a Parasitic Bolete (Pseudoboletus parasiticus) erupting from an Earthball. Its pretty cool to see as its quite rare. IFound some other articles online saying they do little or no damage to the Earthball but looking at the discolouration and state of some of the earthballs with the parasitic Bolete in the past it’s difficult to agree. Anyhow…something in this situation is certainly taking away from the Earthball and I’m looking forward to seeing it again this year and learning some more.
