Common puffball

What it is

The common puffball, Lycoperdon perlatum, is a puffball fungus that grows on the ground. The catalogue records it as a wild, terrestrial species. Its common English name is the common puffball, and the Missouri Department of Conservation field guide uses the name gem-studded puffball for the same species.

The catalogue entry for this species is a food-use record with conditions: it names immature specimens only and requires lookalikes to be excluded.

Food use

The catalogue's food-use summary is a cooked immature puffball, recorded from Mexico and Patagonia. The field notes of Jim Conrad describe eating immature puffballs in Mexico. They refer to the stump puffball, Lycoperdon pyriforme, which grows on wood, and note that L. perlatum also occurs in central Mexico, almost always on the ground. The notes describe the author's own eating and give no preparation method for this species.

The flesh of an immature puffball is white. The Missouri guidance advises cooking puffballs. No source checked for this page gives a preparation method, a cooking time or a temperature for L. perlatum.

Lookalikes and identification

The catalogue warns that dangerous lookalikes require exclusion. The Missouri Department of Conservation advises cutting through every puffball from top to bottom to confirm that it is pure white inside before eating it.

The guidance names two lookalikes. The button stage of the destroying angel, Amanita bisporigera, can look like a puffball. The pigskin puffball, Scleroderma citrinum, has a dark interior. NatureMapR notes that Lycoperdon excipuliforme has a pockmarked surface and simple spines at maturity, which helps separate it from L. perlatum.

Identification by appearance alone is not established by these sources, and nothing on this page is an identification guide.

Safety

Catalogue inclusion is not an edibility verdict, and this page gives none. The Missouri guidance also advises that when eating a wild mushroom for the first time, even a well-regarded one, a small amount should be sampled first.

Smell, taste and bubbles are not evidence of safety. Any use of this species depends on exclusion of the dangerous lookalikes above, which these sources do not establish as a practical field test.