Puffball? (1 Viewer)

[draycotebirding]

A couple of these were seen at Draycote Reservoir. They are football size, very light and spongy and emitting dust spores when pressed. I thought it looked remarkably similar to this Old Puffball http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Giant_puffball_Calvatia_gigantea.jpg but a Mycology group has got back to the finder and are adamant it is not. Any further suggestions welcome.

Regards

John

 

[James Emerson]

Hi John.

I would agree that it looks like an old Giant Puffball. We have several locally and those that aren't collected to eat look similar to this months down the line. The size and shape seems to rule out any other fungi, so the only alternative I can think of would be a mass of reddish soil, which should be easy enough to check.

Regards,
James

A couple of these were seen at Draycote Reservoir. They are football size, very light and spongy and emitting dust spores when pressed. I thought it looked remarkably similar to this Old Puffball http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Giant_puffball_Calvatia_gigantea.jpg but a Mycology group has got back to the finder and are adamant it is not. Any further suggestions welcome.

Regards

John

 

[draycotebirding]

Many thanks James. The finder has since taken the Chairman of a local Mycology group to the site and he is now 100% sure it is a Puffball sp. He has taken spores to try and identify the specific genus.

Regards

John

 

[Trichia]

Hi all,

My only observation is that the habitat looks quite strange for Giant Puffball, which is usually a species of unimproved meadows.
It probably is some other Earthball/Puffball species. I would be most impressed if someone could get this ID'd to species or genus level, even with microscopy!

Cheers,
Nick

 

[draycotebirding]

Thanks Nick I will post on here if any more news comes through

Regards

John

 

[draycotebirding]

Hi all,

My only observation is that the habitat looks quite strange for Giant Puffball, which is usually a species of unimproved meadows.
It probably is some other Earthball/Puffball species. I would be most impressed if someone could get this ID'd to species or genus level, even with microscopy!

Cheers,
Nick

Prepare to be impressed Nick Spore samples taken have identified it as Langermannia gigantea

Regards

John

 

[Trichia]

Good stuff!

Personally I would have struggled - Many of these puffball species' spores are very similar to each other, but they're not really my 'thing'... I guess it was shown to the right person!

Cheers,
Nick

P.S the current name is Calvatia gigantea.