Common PuffballLycoperdon perlatum
Traditionally collected in: Italy, France, Russia and Poland
Description
A white to cream, pear-shaped fruitbody covered in small spines or granules. As the spines fall away they leave a fine net-like pattern on the surface.
Where it grows
In woodland, on litter and decaying wood, and sometimes in grassy clearings or beside paths.
From summer into autumn, especially after wet weather.
«Common Puffball — or something like it?»
If the description above leaves you unsure, do not guess from memory and do not compare by eye with a picture off the internet. Our photo identifier shows several likely candidates with percentages, and names the dangerous lookalikes if there are any — rather than one confident answer.
In detail
Season
Fruits from early June to mid October.
What to do with it
This species may not be picked (see «Caution» below), so storing and cooking do not belong here. If you find one: photograph it where it stands, do not cut or dig it up, and remember the spot for your own records — the mycelium fruits there year after year.
Take care
Edible only when young and pure white inside. Cut every specimen in half before taking it for food. A mature puffball becomes yellow, olive or brown inside and should not be eaten. Young Amanitas can look like puffballs from the outside but show the developing cap, gills and stem when cut open. Earthballs have a firm, dark interior and are not edible.
This species is easily confused with Deathcap (egg stage) — see the lookalikes section below. Pick only what has been confirmed by someone who knows the fungi of your area.
Nothing on this page is an expert opinion, and nothing here confirms that the mushroom you found is edible. Photo identification in this service is a probabilistic hint, not permission to pick or to eat.
Lookalikes
Deadly poisonous, with a delay of many hours before the first symptoms appear.
A photograph cannot settle this pair. The decisive mark is on the inside of the fruitbody, and an intact white egg photographed from outside looks the same in both. No image, yours or an application's, is an answer here.
Poisonous: it brings on vomiting and cramps, and it is one of the mushrooms most often eaten by mistake in Europe.
- ·Cut every specimen from top to bottom: an earthball is dark inside, purplish-grey to almost black, sometimes marbled white when very young, while a young puffball is evenly white throughout.
- ·The wall of an earthball is thick, tough and rind-like, with coarse raised warts and no true stem; a puffball's wall is thin and its surface carries fine spines that rub off.
- ·Earthballs sit on the surface of the ground, often half-exposed on sandy or peaty soil among trees, and pull up with cord-like strands attached to the base.
- ·Do the cutting in the wood, before the mushroom goes into the basket, not at home.
Check whether this one is out near you
The foraging forecast changes daily — with rainfall, temperature and the phase of the flush, rather than «it ought to be the season».
Your comment
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Updated from the FungRadar species reference · not a specialist's determination