Curtis’s Puffball

not listed

NNR - Unranked

not listed

Curtis’s Puffball is a common, small puffball. It occurs in the United States and southern Canada east of the Great Plains and west of the Rocky Mountains, with just a handful of records between. It also occurs in Mexico and Central America. It is found in late summer and fall usually in tight clusters, sometimes grouped but not clustered (gregarious). It grows on the ground in grassy areas. It obtains its nutrients from decaying organic matter (saprobic).

The fruiting body looks like a ball. It is white, spherical, and ⅜″ to ¾″ (10 to 20 mm) in diameter. It may be a little larger, but it is never as big as a ping-pong ball. When clustered, the shape becomes contorted from pressure by adjacent fruiting bodies. When young, it is densely covered with white, curved spines. The surface (peridium) between the spines is covered with powdery granules. The spines are 1⁄32″ to 1⁄16″ (1 to 2 mm) long and are fused at the tips with other spines creating a pyramid or star shape. The spines easily rub off. As it ages, the peridium turns light brown and the spines fall away in small groups, not in sheets. When mature, a pore-like mouth develops at the top (apex) through which spores are released by wind and rain.

The puffball appears pinched at the bottom but there is no stalk. It is attached at the base to white filaments (rhizoids).

The spore mass (gleba) is white and firm when young, becoming yellowish to olive and granular as it ages, finally brownish or purplish-brown and powdery when mature. It is edible when it is young and the flesh is firm and white, but it is too small to be worth collecting.

Grassy areas

Late summer and fall

Sources

4, 24, 26, 29, 30, 77.

Common

Order
The family Lycoperdaceae was formerly placed in the order Lycoperdales. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies resulted in a resturcturing of fungal taxonomy. Genera formerly in the families Tulostomataceae, Battarreaceae, Lycoperdaceae, and Mycenastraceae have been moved to Agaricaceae. The move has been universally accepted.

Family
The genus Lycoperdon was formerly placed in the family Lycoperdaceae. Recent phylogenetic analysis showed that family to be a subgroup within the family Agaricaceae. The move has not been universally accepted. Index Fungorum, MycoBank, Catalog of Life, and NCBI all include Lycoperdon in the family Lycoperdaceae.

Genus
The genus name Lycoperdon is formed from the Latinized form of the Greek words lykos, meaning “wolf”, and perdesthai, meaning “to break wind”—wolf fart.

Small & Tiny White Puffballs...

I came across these two today out at Frenchman’s Bluff SNA. I think they are baby Puffballs of some sort.

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Location: Frenchman’s Bluff SNA

I came across these two today out at Frenchman’s Bluff SNA. I think they are baby Puffballs of some sort.