Some Coeorado Mushrooms 
*3 
ground, sometimes in dooryards and frequently in woodlands. 
Some grow only from the earth, while others may be found at¬ 
tached to much decayed wood. 
When young and fresh they are nearly always white in color 
throughout, the interior being firm and in appearance much like 
cottage cheese. In this condition they are prime for eating and 
should never be destroyed. As they mature, however, the interior 
portions acquire a yellowish, brownish or purplish color and a soft 
and watery consistency, which unfits them for food. In a few 
days’ time the moisture dries out leaving the tougher outer part 
filled with a cottony mass of fibers mixed with dark colored, dusty 
spores. In this condition they are fit objects for the small boy with 
a stick who delights in making them puff out smoke-like clouds of 
spore dust. 
The spores of puffballs are produced in clusters at the ends of 
the fertile cells of the hymenium or spore-bearing layer which lines 
the walls of small, irregular cavities within the fungus. As the puff 
ball matures, these walls partially melt and cause the watery condi¬ 
tion of the interior, while the spores are left mixed with thread-like 
cells of the walls. The fact that the puffballs are so easily recog¬ 
nized in every stage of their growth and that none of them are poi¬ 
sonous or harmful, so long as they are firm and white inside, makes 
them especially desirable and safe for the novice to collect for food. 
The Cup-Shaped or Purple Puffball. 
(Calvatia lilacina variety occidentalis.) 
This is perhaps the commonest of our larger puffballs and is 
at the same time one of the best for the table. It may be looked for 
- in meadows and in grassland that is used for pasturage. When full 
grown it is about once or twice the size of one’s fist and has the 
form of a flattened sphere with a narrowed base. 
At first the outer covering ( peridium ) is white and nearly 
smooth, but as the fungus matures it becomes slightly cracked into 
very irregular areas and acquires a purplish color. As the inside 
moisture evaporates the peridium gradually flakes away, exposing 
the purple spore-mass within. In time the wind scoops out the 
spores, together with the cottony threads and scatters them far and 
wide, leaving the hollowed-out base of the fungus attached to the 
ground. 
The Giant Puffball (Calvatia gigantea). 
This fungus is not only the Goliath of its tribe, but when well 
developed has no rival in size among the fleshy fungi. It frequently 
attains the size of a football while specimens nearly sixty inches in 
circumference and weighing fifteen pounds have been seen by the 
