Le Champignon

Puffballs can be as small as marbles to as large as a watermelon. And they generally appear during the late summer and fall.   

From our walk the other day we spotted a scattering of individual puffballs the size of golf balls including this cluster on one of the trails. The surfaces can be smooth or corrugated like these. Sometimes that have spikes Unlike other mushrooms these do not have a stem. 

I’ve traveled in France a number of times and a lesser known and one of the most important functions of the French pharmacist is that of mushroom identification.  French pharmacists are trained in mycology.  All French pharmacists are required to study mushroom taxonomy as part of their training and provide the service of examining any wild-foraged fungi you collect. It is a valuable cultural and public service to encourage collection of free-range fungi and avoid poisoning. 

I am told that these puffballs are edible but because I am not an experienced forager of wild edibles and certainly not a trained mycologist.  As a consequence of this situation I am disinclined to bring these home, slice them up and saute in butter for a breakfast omelet. 

For the record - all mushrooms are fungi - yet not all fungi are mushrooms.