Help Identifying Dubious Fungi (1 Viewer)

s00gee said:

Can anyone help me identify these? I live in central Mississippi. These came up suddenly after a hard rain. They're growing at the edge of the yard where it merges into a bed of ivy. This is on the west side of the house, but it's pretty sheltered by trees and the neighbor's house. All three are growing along a straight line, about 4-5 feet apart. I haven't seen any others. After a couple of weeks they are still there, but now they're all dark, scabrous & scaly.

I touched the one on the left that looks like a Star Wars helmet, and it was very firm & fleshy feeling - not like a puff-ball. I just have no clue what these could be! :h?:


SG

P.S. This is how they look, from left to right. Seriously! The two on the ends are about as big as my outstretched hand (I don't have very big hands). The one in the center is about three fingers wide.

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dippers said:

Hi SG, they look like Giant Puffballs to me, they are firm and fleshy when young - they are edible then, and the flesh is white.

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s00gee said:

Thank you, Martin! That would be very cool if they were edible. These things were much bigger than any kind of puffball I'd ever seen before. I've left these undisturbed, so maybe they'll propagate.

I can't swear to it, but it seems like there are many more and new kinds of fungi everywhere in my yard since Katrina came through last year. Maybe these spores were a little gift from the hurricane.

SG

P.S. I just found this web page called Images of Puffballs in San Diego County. One of the pictures looks exactly like the right-hand one in my yard that I called "Yorkshire Pudding." It also shows them being fried up in a pan. This is so cool!

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dippers said:

Glad I could help, don't know how big yours were - hard to judge from the pics, but have attached one I took in October here, I put a matchbox in to show the size.

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dippers said:

One tip I'd give before eating lots in the future is to try a small portion first - some people just don't agree with them and best to find out first!

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s00gee said:

I wish I'd thought to put something in my pictures to show the scale. I first saw the one on the left just before Halloween, and I thought it was a small skull. Not a real one, but maybe a toy. It was about the size of the skull from a plastic skeleton I have that's about 3 feet tall. (Is that a meter? Sorry, I'm metric-impaired.)


That's a very good suggestion. I thought I might eat one small bite, and then wait a few hours to see if I get smaller or larger. 3

SG

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s00gee said:

Of course! I would never eat one of these, though.

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