Puffball? Or Langermania giganteum
I was so surprised the other morning when I glanced into a wooded area adjacent to my house and saw several almost snowy-white soccerlike balls resting on the ground. I thought, at first, that a child was playing some kind of trick on me, but I soon realized that they were giant puffball fungi, thriving in the woods.
The type growing in my yard are the most common species of puffball, known as Langermania giganteum, reaching a diameter of 12 inches or more. And snowy-white they are when they first emerge from the ground, feeling spongy like a marshmallow. Within days, a puffball begins to turn brown as the spores inside mature. When the time is just right, an external stimulus will pop open the puffball, releasing a puffy cloud of spores, to hopefully, ensure a new crop next year.
People always want to know if a certain mushroom is edible and, yes, this kind of puffball is safe to consume. It can be sliced and sauteed in butter or olive oil and has kind of an eggplantlike consistency. However, it's important to know that the deadly Amanita mushrooms, when it first emerges from the ground, can look like a small puffball. Therefore, cut small puffballs in half, from top to bottom, first. If that reveals anything that looks like a stalk or mushroom cap, instead of pure white flesh, do not consider eating it!
I can't believe how ginormous the puffballs are! I remember as a child seeing much smaller mushroom caps growing in our yard. I don't know what kind they were, but that my old sister had to yell at me to keep them away from my mouth (being a mushroom lover and all). I bet they would be tasty diced up in a salad!
Posted by: Kari | October 7th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
thank you Martha!
you make our life so more, more,exciting and sexy
with your uplifting way of "fine living".
simply , thank you!
Posted by: Alexandre | October 7th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
We used to get those at my father's house growing up, but NEVER quite that size! My sister and I used to love playing with the little puffballs after they had matured and were ready to *pop*. How extraordinary that you have such large ones cropping up in your yard! (And yes, I would probably have thought them to be soccer balls, too.) Can't wait to see the show.
Posted by: Kim Wylie | October 8th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Hi Martha,
Your puff-balls could be nature's packing peanuts? AMAZING! Let us see what happens to them...will they blow into the neighbors yard!? Or wither and dry up? Maybe carve little Jack-O-Faces on them like we saw on yesterdays Martha...shrunken head on a stick/in a bed...Fun fall!
Posted by: tinay | October 8th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Those are huge!!!!I've never seen anything like it - must be prehistoric.
I showed it to everybody I know.
Just another reason why I should move out of the desert. My backyard is just covered in red gravel and artificial grass.
Posted by: Norbie K. of Las vegas | October 8th, 2008 at 4:31 am
If we were lucky enough to find some of these in the fall, my Mother would cook them for us. Actually she fried them for us, but first she would dip them in egg and roll them in crushed cracker crumbs and then fry them in butter. Very Good. But never eat one when they are not snow white, then they are poisionous to eat.
Posted by: Brenda | October 8th, 2008 at 4:40 am
I forgot to mention she sliced them in half inch slices and THEN dipped them in egg and cracker crumbs and fried them in BUTTER!
Posted by: Brenda | October 8th, 2008 at 4:42 am
These are fantastic. What a bumper crop you have mysteriously produced!
Posted by: IowaCowgirl | October 8th, 2008 at 4:45 am
I would love to see the inside of one, especially since there are the poisonous puffballs to watch out for. Please show a cutaway of one of them on your website.
I love your blog! Such interesting stuff every day. Thanks!
Posted by: Cheryl T. | October 8th, 2008 at 4:49 am
I love Martha
Posted by: Martha's fan | October 8th, 2008 at 6:55 am
I have never seen those before. That is absolutely fascinating! Thanks for sharing the wonderful pics - and I learned something new!
Posted by: Lisa @ Stop and Smell the Chocolates | October 8th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Oh my goodness!...these things are a right-nice size, aren't they?!! I'll see them tonite (with Edgar =^..^=) when I (we) view today's show. I really can't say that I've EVER seen a puffball this big! They were fun to play with when we were kids - the "smoke", etc - but they were never this big!
I've been getting large mushroom-like fungi appearing in the lawn the last couple weeks - some are clusters about 4-5" across. They're coming up in a section of zoysia grass (out front, at the street side), that is so dense and tightly woven together, I don't know how the stems even grew up through this dense carpet-like lawn! (This grass came with the purchase of my home 10 years ago. I mow it on my highest mower setting, and it looks like a man's crew cut...it is soooo thick and dense!) Aerially, as I look out the upstairs windows, I see them, don't like what I see, so I've been pulling them by hand (since I think people can see them from the street). Once I get my hand around the top "canopy", the stem pulls right out through the grass, but you have to be patient and precise to remove it whole. That's that, then - no more seem to come back in the same place.
Edgar =^..^= and I will definitely be "on-guard" tonite and anticipate this segment portion of your show!
(He sends his love again today, Martha!)
(Me, too!)
=^..^=
mrrrow
Posted by: Cindy Bricker | October 8th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Whoa! Can't say I've ever seen a puffball before. Are they only found on the East Coast?
Posted by: Kim G. | October 8th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Hi Martha, WOW! Your puffballs are certainly the largest I have ever seen. You have some of the most fascinating and unusual things growing on your farm. How do you do it?! I can only imagine that your soil is the best for growing all of these fantastic items and your compost certainly helps to produce them. Can't wait to see the next unusual item. I hope Francesca's foot is healing quickly. Give her a big hug for me. Jan
Posted by: Jan Erickson | October 8th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I've never seen such a thing. Very interesting and unusual.
Posted by: dw | October 8th, 2008 at 11:23 am
How do those things grow so Fast, I wonder? Amazing Mother Nature strikes again.
Posted by: Jannie | October 8th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I was amazed when you brought one to the show the other day. It looked like a huge homemade marshmallow and I was wondering how many meals that would make! We get the white poisonous ones in our yard once in awhile and I scoop them up with a shovel and put them in with my leaves to discard.
Do you have any morels that you know of? They are pretty tasty too but funny/ugly looking. Yours sure do resemble a soccer ball; maybe if you actually kicked a few, the spores would definitely spread to reproduce next year. Trish
Posted by: Trish | October 8th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I have some of these in my yard also. I even have some that are black looking. I love your blog.
Posted by: valerie | October 8th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Martha,
Thanks so much for the information on Puffballs. We had one last year and the other day I discovered three on the edge of our property. I didn't know what kind of fungi they were. Now I do. I think they are rather wonderful - almost from another world. Our Puffballs are really big this year, much bigger than last.
Posted by: Claudia Hill | October 8th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
AMAZING!
Posted by: Carolyn | October 9th, 2008 at 12:19 am
I think I should take a walk into the woods behind our house and see what I might find. We lived near the city for more than 30 years so the puffballs that occasionally came up in the yard were not the edible kind. But my mother and dad used to go "mushroom hunting" when I was a kid and I wonder now that we live in the country if I might find some "right in my own back yard"!!
Posted by: Sandi Andersen | October 9th, 2008 at 5:26 am
Those puff balls are amazing! They almost look alien. Wouldn't that be a hoot? Too bad nothing grows in my backyard. I would have already taken a picture and sent it to the Enquirer.
Posted by: Teresa C. Cordell | October 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Wow, I have never seen a puffball before.
Amazing! But, I must say they remind me of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers' pods. Very spooky. Perfect for Halloween!
Posted by: Tammy | October 9th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Wow those are neat! I don't know if I have ever seen them before. Very interesting!
Posted by: Ashley | October 10th, 2008 at 6:33 am
I recently had a large puffball appear in my yard, as well, and posted a photo on my blog. It actually got larger than what I show in the photo I posted. Since my husband said he wouldn't eat any if I cooked it, I left it alone.
Posted by: Sue K | October 10th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Hi, I saw today's show and would like to know more about Kathy Pufahl greenhouse. I wasn't able to find anything here. I am in Puebla Mexico.
Thank you very much
Posted by: Mary López | October 14th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Growing up in North Carolina, we had these in our yard all the time. My sister figured out we could eat them. I think she read it in the Foxfire series of books. But, yes, they were the most fun when they matured a bit more and you could pop them, sending the spores shooting everywhere!
Posted by: Joyce H. | November 1st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Wow, that is pretty cool. I've never seen one of those before.
Posted by: Alyzabeth | October 22nd, 2009 at 10:37 am