1 1 14 Home Nature-Study Course. 



(2). What is the size and shape of the puffball? Is its surface smooth 

 or warty? What is its color inside and outside? 



(3). Have you ever found the giant puffball, which may become 

 eight inches to four feet through? Where was it growing? Have you 

 ever eaten this puft'ball sliced and fried? Do you know by the looks 

 of the meat when it is fit to eat? 



(4). If the puffball is ripe, what is its color outside and in? What is 

 the color of its " smoke " ? Does the " smoke " come out through the 

 broken covering of the puffball, or is there one or more special openings 

 to allow it to escape? 



(5). Puff some of the " smoke " on white paper and examine it with 

 a lens. What do you think this dust is? Of what use is it to the 

 puffball ? 



(6). Have you ever found what are called earth-stars, which look 

 like little puff balls set in star-shaped cups? If you find these note 

 the following things : 



a. Of what is the star-shaped base made? Was it always there? 



b. Let this star saucer become very dry; how does it act? 



c. Wet it; and how does it behave then? 



d. Where and how does this spore dust escape from the earth-stars ? 

 (7). For what medicinal purpose is the smoke of the puffball some- 

 times used ? 



Facts for Teachers. — The puffballs are always interesting to children because 

 of the smoke issuing from them in clouds when pressed between thumb and finger. 

 The common species are white or creamy when young, and some of the species 

 are warty or roughened so that as children we called them " little lambs." They 

 grow on the ground usually, some in wet shady places, and others, as the giant 

 species, in grassy fields in late summer. This giant puffball always excites interest 

 when found. It has a smoothish white rounded mass, apparently resting on the grass 

 as if thrown there; when lifted it is seen that it has connection below at its center 

 through its mycelium threads, which form a network in the soil. It is often a foot 

 in diameter and specimens four feet through have been recorded. When its meat 

 is solid and white to the very center it makes very good food. The skin should 

 be pared off, the meat sliced and sprinkled with salt and pepper and fried in 

 hot fat until browned. All the puffballs are edible, but ignorant persons might 

 mistake the button stages of some of the poisonous mushrooms for little puffballs, 

 and it is not well to encourage the use of small puffballs for the table. 



A common species, " the beaker puffball," is pear-shaped, with its small end 

 made fast to the ground which is permeated with its vegetable threads. 



The interior of a puffball, " the meat," is made up of the threads and spores. 

 As they ripen, the threads break up so that with the spores they make the 

 " smoke," as can be seen if the dust is examined through a microscope. The 

 outer wall may become dry and brittle and break open and allow the spores to 

 escape, or one or more openings may appear in it as spore doors. The spores 



