CHAPTER XV. 



LYCOPERDACEAE PUFF-BALLS. 



This family includes all fungi which have their spores in closed chambers 

 until maturity. The chambers are called the gleba and this is surrounded by the 

 peridium or rind, which in different puffballs exhibits various characteristic ways 

 of opening to let the spores escape. The peridium is composed oi two distinct 

 layers, one called the cortex, the other the peridium proper. The plant is gen- 

 erally sessile, sometimes more or less stemmed, at maturity filled with a dusty 

 mass of spores and thread, 



It affords many of our most delicious fungus food products. The following 

 genera are considered here : 



I. Calvatia The large puffball. 

 II. Lycoperdon The small puffball. 

 III. Bovista The tumbling- puffball. 

 IV. Geaster Earth Star. 

 V. Scleroderma The hard puffball. 



Calvatia. fr. 



This genus represents the largest sized puffballs. The)' have a thick cord- 

 like mycelium rooting from the base. The peridium is very large, breaking away 

 in fragments when ripe and exposing the gleba. The cortex is thin, adherent, 

 often soft and smooth like kid leather, sometimes covered with minute squamules ; 

 the inner peridium is thin and fragile, at maturity cracking into- areas. The 

 capillitium is a net-work of fine threads through the tissues of spore-bearing 

 portion ; tissue, snow white at first, turning greenish-yellow, then brown ; the 

 mass of spores and the dense net- work of threads (capillitium) attached to the 

 peridium and to the subgleba or sterile base which is cellulose ; limited and con- 

 cave above. Spores small, round, usually sessile. 



Calvatia gigantea. Batsch. 



The Giant Puffball. Edible 1 . 



This species grows, to an immense size (often twenty inches in diameter) ; round 

 or obovoid, with a thick mycelial cord rooting it to the ground, sessile, cortex 

 white and glossy, sometimes slightly rougened by minute floccose warts, becoming 



(531) 



