Lycoperdon utriforme
Hist. Champ. Fr. (Paris): 153. 1791.
Common Name: puffball
Synonyms: Calvatia utriformis (Bull.) Jaap; Handkea utriformis (Bull.) Kreisel; Lycoperdon bovista Pers.; Lycoperdon caelatum Bull.; Bovistella utriformis (Bull.) Demoulin & Rebriev
Fruiting body 9-20 x 7-25 cm broad, at first compressed globose, becoming pestle-shaped, tapering gradually or abruptly to a sterile base; exoperidium approximately 1.0-1.5 mm thick, white to cream-colored, dull brown in age, tomentose to subfloccose, fibrils often fusing to form pyramidal warts, these aggregated into larger scaly patches, especially on the upper fruiting body; endoperidium greyish-brown, thin, membranous, disintegrating apically, forming a crater-like opening; gleba at first cream-colored, soft, soon yellowish-green to olive-brown, powdery in age; subgleba occupying the lower third to half of the fruiting body, separated from the gleba by a membranous diaphragm, subglebal tissue cream-colored, senescing to greyish-brown, composed of cells up to 1 mm in diameter; odor and taste of immature gleba not distinctive.
Spores globose to subglobose, 4.5-5.5 µm in diameter, smooth, moderately thick-walled, with a single oil droplet, lacking a pedicel; capillitial pits common, consisting mostly of sinuous slits; spores olive-brown in mass.
Solitary or in small groups in grassy areas, fruiting from late fall to spring; occasional.
Edible when young.
Lycoperdon utriforme is one of California’s larger puffballs. A grassland species, it is recognized by a compressed-globose, pestle-shaped head, seated on a thick, stem-like pseudostipe. Additional fieldmarks include a cottony-floccose exoperidium that develops stellate scales and flat warts, and a crater-like apical opening in age. A varietal form, Lycoperdon utriforme var. hungaricum lacks a pseudostipe and subglebal tissues. Lycoperdon utriforme can be confused with several medium to large grassland species such as Calvatia pachyderma, Calvatia cyathiformis f. fragilis, and Calvatia booniana. Calvatia pachyderma is a softball or larger sized, globose puffball that differs with a thick, rind-like peridium and lacks a subgleba. Calvatia cyathiformis f. fragilis is a medium-sized turbinate-shaped puffball differentiated by a glabrous (except for areolate patches) exoperidium and purplish gleba. Calvatia booniana, California's largest puffball, is recognized by a compressed globose shape, lack of a pseudostipe, and exoperidium of broad flat polygonal scales and warts. It is rarely found along the coastal California, occurring more commonly in montane meadows and in the sagebrush country of the eastern Sierra.
Kreisel (1989) erected the genus Hankea, for those species of Calvatia that have sinuous, not round capillitial pits, weak to non-dextrinoid endoperidial tissue, and false rather than true septate capillitium. Molecular evidence has shown this to be a heterogeneous group, with many of the species placed in Handkea belonging in Calvatia or Lycoperdon.
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