Lycoperdon perlatum

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Lycoperdon_perlatum.html

Ecology: Saprobic; growing alone, scattered, gregariously, or in clusters; in woods under hardwoods or conifers, but also common along roadsides and in urban settings; late spring through fall in temperate regions, but also over winter in warm climates; widely distributed and common in North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois, Colorado, and Italy.

Fruiting Body: Usually shaped like an inverted pear or a cushion, with a fairly prominent sterile base and a roundish or somewhat flattened top; 2-7 cm wide; 3-8 cm high; dry; whitish to very pale brownish when young, becoming brown with age; covered when fresh and young with cone-shaped, wide-based, firm spines about 1 mm high (often with well-spaced larger spines surrounded by smaller spines and/or granules); spine tips often becoming brownish to brown; surface, after spines have fallen off, pock-marked where the spines were attached, sometimes in a reticulate pattern; outer skin paper thin; developing a central perforation through which spore powder is liberated by rain drops and wind currents; interior flesh white and spongy at first, later olive to olive brown above and yellowish to brown in the sterile base; spore powder olive brown at maturity; base attached to thin white rhizomorphs.

Microscopic Features: Spores 4-5 m; globose; finely verrucose; greenish yellow in KOH. Basidia 5-6 c 5-6 m; subglobose; 4-sterigmate with long (about 3 m) sterigmata; smooth; hyaline to yellowish or brownish in KOH. Capillitial threads 2-5 m wide; hyaline to olive or brown in KOH; walls 0.5-1 m thick; with scattered tiny pores.

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