TOPIC: puffballs

hey guys, we are used to finding and eating morrels but we found a giant puffball mushroom yesterday. Does anyone know about this species and are they absolutely safe? The one we found is white, smooth and solid in the middle. Appreciate any info.

yep, It's safe there are not many good rules of thumb when it comes to fungus, but with puffballs there is.
Larger than your fist, and pure white inside. Occasionally one will find an \"amanita egg\" IE an imature amanita, with the universal veil still encomapassing it. They are always smaller than your fist, and when you cut them open, the outline of an immature mushroom will be apparent. There are also another type of puffball, scleroderma species, they are usually refered to as earthballs. They are smaller than your fist and the endoperidium is dark (the inside) If you wanted to post a pick, i could probably tell you the species of your find. It could be calvata gigantea (the eastern giant puffball) calvata booniana(the western giant puffball) or calvata craniformis (which is widely distributed and has a sterile base, so t looks like it is on a pedestal) or maybe calvata bovista (also with a sterile base and low pyrimidal warts) all of which are edible.

Yeah I usually run across a few every year. Found 3 a couple weeks ago and as long as they are still white alll the way through (not yellow) they are very choice!

Thanks for all the help guys. I knew where to go to get the info. Now we'll add these to our foraging as well. Quite tasty too.