Genus Lycoperdon 
spicules, on the tips of which are the spores. When the plant 
is fully developed, the fleshy part becomes so filled with moisture 
that water may be squeezed out as from a sponge. As the flesh 
becomes moist, the colour changes from white, through yellow, 
to olive. After the change in colour, the wet mass becomes dry 
and powdery, a mass of globose spores and elastic threads or 
capillitium. 
The Lycoperdons are of small size, usually found in fields and 
woods. A section made by cutting a ball from top to base will 
show that the threads form a more or less well developed sterile 
base or subgleba underneath the fertile gleba, or mass of threads 
containing spores. Sometimes the sterile threads from the base 
rise upward in the centre of the fertile mass and form a little 
column, the columella. Usually the threads which bear the 
spores are in two sets ; one set extending inward from the walls 
of the rind, and another set extending outward from the central 
columella. 
Pear-shaped Puffball (Edible) 
Lycoperdon pyriforme 
Peridium or Pouch—Pear-shaped. Dingy white or brownish, with 
mycelium of long, white, branching fibres. Diameter 34-114 
inches. Height 1-2 inches. 
Bark or Outer Coat—Thin; of minute, often persistent, scales or 
granules, or short, stout spinules. Whitish grey or brownish. 
Jnner Coat—Smooth, papery, whitish grey or brownish, opening 
by apical mouth. 
Subgleba—Small, white, quite compact, the cells minute. 
Columella—Present. 
Spores—Globose, even, greenish yellow to brownish olive. 
Threads—Branched, long, forming a dense tuft in the centre. 
Time—July to October. 
Habitat—On old timber or on the ground, in groups sometimes 
several feet across in extent. The commonest of puffballs, 
and found throughout the world. 
Pinkish Puffball (Edible) 
Lycoperdon subincarnatum (See Prats Facinc Pace 134) 
Peridium or Pouch—Globe-shaped, sessile, without a stem-like 
base. Rarely over one inch in diameter. 
Py'-ri-for'-mé Stib-in'-cdr-na'-ttim 
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