Two mushrooms the size of soccer balls turned up in the local park.
No, that was no typo. The size of soccer balls.
A run-around on Google indicates that what we have are the aptly-named Giant Puffballs.
Just wow.
There’s an episode of one of the River Cottage series where Hugh and his forager friend go searching for puffballs… by taking binoculars to the top of a high hill. They find one that’s like, 30" across.
Yup, that there’s a giant puffball. Imagine the brown smoke coming out of THAT puppy when you step on it! :eek:
I think this youtube video gives you a better idea of what they look like than the pics from that wikipedia page.
Giant Puffball Mushroom in Oregon
Our new mushroom overlords indeed.
From that link:
Yipes.
I have a strange compulsion to kick mushrooms out of the ground. I wish I could get my foot on one of those puppies.
Someone already broke one of them, and the other was uprooted. I put it in a safer place, so maybe it will be okay.
Just don’t break a toe.
That’s what I was wondring are they real puffballs that poof? Or the crappy fake kind that just squoosh like wet styrofoam.
Good gad! You didn’t bring it into the house without checking for pods, did you?!?
They aren’t the same sort, but there are mushrooms that pop up after some damp weather on the neighbors’ side of our driveway that go from being not there, then almost a sphere on a stalk, about the size of a baseball, and then they unfurl into dinner plates on stalks. It all happens very quickly when compared with starting vegetable plants from seeds. By the second day the tops are turning brownish and they wilt away into the grass.
Nature is the shiznit!
Looks like the Mycon advance scouts are here.
Well, that’s just great.
Probably one and the same. The more mature they are, the more poofy. When they first come out of the ground they are uniformly firm and white throughout. Some species are decently edible - folks like to slice them into steaks, then bread and fry them. As they mature the interior breaks down into it is full of nothing but a bazillion spores - the poofy “smoke.”
Thats nothing. The largest organism in the world (by area) is a mushroom:
I used to stomp on the ripe ones as a kid-note I am doing the 'shroom a favor by doing so.
Like any mushroom I am aware of, they are soft.
By the time they get really large they are usually infested with tiny worms. But I once found a pristine one which I had to break in half to fit a piece of it into my day pack.
Are you sure it isn’t a blancmange?
We get giant puffballs around here in my bit of Southern England - they’re quite highly prized by fungi gourmets - as long as the flesh is white throughout, they’re good it eat. Huge slices can be dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried.
I’ve tried them and they’re pretty good - just big chunks of solid mushroomy stuff.
Nah, one of those would be at Wimbledon, no fear of that.