Puffball Images
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Images of Puffballs in San Diego County

Calvatia and Lycoperdon

Puffballs of the Genus Calvatia

Two baseball-sized puffballs (Calvatia gigantea) collected in the chaparral of San Diego County.

Fresh slices of a puffball (Calvatia gigantea) sauteed in butter. They have essentially the same texture and flavor as tofu.

Iron Mountain looking east from Highway 67. The mountain was blackened by the enormous Cedar Fire of October 2003. Some large puffballs (Calvatia gigantea) were observed on Iron Mountain during the following April of 2004.

A baseball-sized puffball (Calvatea gigantea) in a grassy meadow at the base of Iron Mountain.

A baseball-sized puffball (Calvatia gigantea) in San Diego County, California. The inside is filled with a dark mass of spores intermingled with threadlike hyphae (capillitium). The close-up view of spores (right) was taken at 1,000x. Each spherical spore has a diameter of about 1/200 mm (5 µm), slightly smaller than a human red blood cell (7.5 µm). Depending on the species, puffballs range in size from a baseball to a basketball. When they are mature, the puffball releases billions of spores into the air in a cloud of brown dust. This can easily be demonstrated if you accidentally kick one. According to David Arora (Mushrooms Demystified, 1986), a large puffball may contain 7 trillion spores. Lined up single file, this number of spores would extend around the earth's equator. If each spore produced a puffball the size of a basketball, the resulting puffballs would extend from the earth to the sun and back!

A dried puffball (Calvatia gigantea) that has split open exposing a mass of brown spores. The powdery spore mass has an unpleasant odor similar to old urine. This puffball contains about 1.5 cups (375 ml) of spores. If the volume of one spore is 0.000000062 ml, then the number of spores in this puffball exceeds 6 billion. One puffball releases literally billions of spores into the air in a cloud of brown dust.

A dried puffball (Calvatia gigantea) that has split open exposing a mass of brown spores. The powdery spore mass has an unpleasant odor similar to old urine. One puffball releases literally billions of spores into the air in a cloud of brown dust.

Puffballs of the Genus Lycoperdon

Common puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum) in coastal San Diego County. The surface is covered with flattened and cone-shaped spines.

Common puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum) in coastal San Diego County. Unlike Calvatia, the puffball has a sterile, stalklike base. The surface is covered with flattened and cone-shaped spines.

Close-up view of the surface of a common puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum) showing flattened and cone-shaped spines.

Dead Man's Foot (Pisolithus tinctorius)

Old sporocarp of dead man's foot (Pisolithus tinctorius) in the Palomar College Arboretum. David Arora (Mushroons Demystified, 1986) describes this fungus as follows: "This dusty montrosity is among the most distinctive and memorable of all the fleshy fungi." Older specimens in powdery stage resemble a brown stump and the mass of dry spore dust coats everthing in the vicinity. This is a beneficial, mycorrhizal fungus often attached to the roots of nearby trees.

Close-up view of the interior of an old sporocarp of dead man's foot (Pisolithus tinctorius). The dark viscous mass is the source of a brown dye. Spores are produced inside small peridioles the size of rice grains.

Pisolithus tinctorius and western toad (Bufo boreas) in San Marcos after heavy rain.

Another dead man's foot sporocarp (Pisolithus tinctorius) in San Marcos, CA.

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