·3 min read
Bovista plumbea
Color
WhiteGray
Shape
Puffballs
Surface
Smooth
Important Mushroom Background Information
Bovista plumbea is a small puffball mushroom commonly found in Western Europe and California, white when young and brown in age.
Edible when young. A young specimen is more difficult to distinguish because it is completely white outside which leads us to similar puffballs. So you'll have to cut them to see what's under the skin, it should be always gray.
Only after some time white membrane around the bulb come off, and the gray pollen bulb becomes visible.
Very old specimens completely lack the white membrane.
Other names: Paltry Puffball, Rolling Puffball, Gray Puffball, Loodgrijze bovist (Netherlands), Privka ediv (Czech Republic), Bleigrauer Zwergbovist (German), La boviste plombe (France).
Bovista plumbea Mushroom Identification
1
Fruiting Body
1-5 cm diameter, rounded or flattened-rounded, with a thin root, without sterile tissue under the glebe.
2
Outer Shell
The exoperidium is thin, initially white, cream, later brown, dirty-white in the upper part of the fruit body, breaks and falls off when ripe, remaining only in the lower part.
3
Inner Shell
The endoperidium is dense, smooth, at first gray, later blackish-gray, lead-gray, steel, when ripe, a hole is formed at the top of the fruit body for the release of spores.
4
Flesh
The flesh is initially white, yellowish-olive, brown with a purple tint when mature, powdery, without a pronounced smell.
5
Spores
5.06.5 x 4.05.5 m, ovoid, thick-walled, and nearly smooth, with a central oil droplet, and a 7.511.5 m pedicel. The capillitium is composed of individual elements, rather than interwoven, main branches thick-walled, flexuous, rapidly tapering, forking more or less dichotomously, ochre-colored in KOH. The spores are released via a small apical pore.
6
Spore Mass
Brown.
7
Habitat
Grows from early Summer to September, in forests, meadows, roadsides, fields, gardens, poor and sandy soils.
Bovista plumbea Mushroom Look-Alikes
1
Lycoperdon perlatum
Is covered in warts rather than spines.
2
Lycoperdon pyriforme
Grows on stumps and buried wood.
3
Lycoperdon mammiforme
The surface is covered in woolly patches.
4
Calvatia gigantea
Similar in the early stages of development its outer skin (peridium) but much larger.
Bovista plumbea Taxonomy and Etymology
In 1796 Christiaan Hendrik Persoon described this species and give it the binomial name Bovista plumbea.
The generic name Bovista comes from the old German vohenvist - vohe meaning a fox and vst an emission of gas from the colon, which is a reference to the odor of the spore dust released from these mushrooms.
The specific epithet plumbea means 'leaden' and refers to the grayish color of the inner peridium of this fungus.
Bovista plumbea Synonyms
1
Lycoperdon perlatum
2
Lycoperdon pyriforme
3
Lycoperdon mammiforme
4
Calvatia gigantea
Sources
Photo Credit 1
Iskra KajevskaPhoto Credit 2
Holger KrispPhoto Credit 3
Matt BowserPhoto Credit 4
Ron Pastorino (Ronpast)Photo Credit 5
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