Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Puffballs

Over the last week, I found some small puffballs growing on the wood chips scattered around the Eugenias on the road leading to Island Club.So what are puffballs? The name "puffball" is used here to refer to three types of fungi - Calvatia, Calbovista, and Lycoperdon. Their surfaces may be smooth, covered with small or large warts, or ornamented with spikes. Puffballs are usually white and round, and are attached to the ground with little or no apparent stem. The other interesting thing to note is they come in many sizes, some as small as a marble and some as large as a basketball.
Two days ago, I spotted a giant puffball growing on the side of the main road. My chance to photograph this mushroom presented itself. I went back to the site the following day to find that the fungus had grown.To show how large the puffball is I placed my sunglasses by the mushroom. This lone puffball was in the same location that I last spotted several of them before the grass cutters chopped them to bits.

2 comments:

Shawn said...

Well that really is pretty big! They really seem to look like the cakes that are given as offerings from the buddhists. Can often see them around HDB flats.

In India I also came across a giant flower (or is it a fungus?), very mch like a rafllesia. Won't tell you much now! Haha! I'll blog about it soon!

Shirls said...

Ha!Ha! it does indeed.