Found under the oaks in the woods behind the house in the Chicago burbs.

Sliced, fried in butter....good stuff.

Don't fall asleep near that thing.

I can't speak specifically about a puffball, but what isn't good sliced and fried in butter? 🙂

-Lenny

WOW, old movie LT....69

And here i thought i was going to see a big Puffy Cheetoh...

RasDas

Joe

excuse my ignorance....but what the hell is that???!

I am from the NW, and must not get out much, cause I have never seen a "puffball".

Marshmellow on steriods

The weatherman said.....hail. yikes!

Yo AJ: Never saw a puffball before, what are they and what are they good for if anything. JonR

A puffball is a type of fungus/mushroom. They are solid mushroom, through and through, kinda delicately, pithy. There are different types. If you like mushrooms, they are edible and tasty when young (we ate this one fried in butter and onions). When they get old their insides hollow out and turn into spores so that when disturbed or stepped on they let out a "puff" of dark powder which is the spores by which they reproduce. Thus the name...puffball. Most mushrooms are not edible and some are very poisonous, so you gotta know what you're doing. I was lucky enough to grow up in a rural area where I went fall and spring mushroom hunting with my grandpa, who knew all the old settler ways of subsistence (mushrooms, nuts, berries, fishing, hunting, digging roots (sassafras), wild asparagus, making elderberry wine, etc.). You might find them in Central Park in the fall after some wet weather, but they are generally smaller than a baseball, and often the size of a golf ball. This one was on steroids!

Thanx for the memories... used to hunt and eat them criters when I was a young'in... good stuff if taken at the right time and prepared correctly.. also used
to pick morrels and shaggy manes.. (Central, N.Lower Michigan by the way)

cayman2b

I had one that size in my yard this summer. Threw it away, never thought about eating it.

I learn something new everyday.....thank you AJ.

Chicken and puffballs...yum!

Never thought about eating a puffball. Now a morel on the other hand, damn tasty - a few months and up they come.

Elderberry wine man I have not had that since I was a kid. My grandma used to make it.

Bassdude... Now your talkin... Morels!!!

my luck on a puffball, I'd pick a killer!!!

Rhubarb Pie!!!! mmmmmm it's been at least 25 yrs since I've even seen one...

Hog

Anybody ever try corn smut?

Hog,My neigborhood bakery used to make strawberry-rhubarb pie. I've haven't had any in 40 years. Time ta go lookin. X

I remember puffballs, but never knew they grew that big! They were like grapes.