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Calvatia cyathiformis
Fungi never ceases to amaze or surprise me... ever! I spotted what I suspected to be a reasonably large puffball fungus a few days ago, but what I found this afternoon blew me away, and I had serious doubts that it was a puffball species at all. The last two photos show the original spotting. It was located growing on broadleaf grass, in full sunlight for much of the day. A few days later (Jan 05), after two days of heavy rain, instead of splitting or developing a dispersal pore as puffballs do, it had lost its spherical shape and completely flattened on top to become cap-like, and darkened to a deep plumb colour. Very lightweight with a mostly dry and rubbery texture on the outer margins and sides, but soft like marshmallow on top. As I pressed its surface, the spores were released and seemed very gritty to touch. Photo #4 shows the result of my amateur autopsy - it looks like chocolate mousse. This is what I imagine truffles to look like. >>> MY SPECIES ID - Calvatia cyathiformis - http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/calvatia/... and http://www.flickr.com/photos/30857482@N0... It is a species commonly found in Australia. Common name is Purple-spored Puffball. It is an edible species of mushroom. Wikipedia gives an excellent description of this puffball and its life cycle.
Specimen found growing on a suburban lawn. This is a common puffball in grazing paddocks and grassed areas around the wetter areas of Australia, ranging from the southwest of Western Australia, and from Adelaide in South Australia, to Cooktown on the Cape York Peninsula, as well as Darwin in the Northern Territory.
The message on the key tag in photo #5 says "The more contact I have with humans the more I like my cat!" The more I like mushrooms too!
Spotted on Jan 1, 2015
Submitted on Jan 5, 2015
6 Comments
What you're holding in your hand is just the leftover sterile stem base. The globe on top is where the spores were. The two days of heavy rain is when the spores got dispersed (maybe not very far!). The whole top disintegrates with these, just leaving the base.
Great find Neil.
Thanks, Leuba. I didn't have a chance to see its gradual transformation, but I'm sure it would have been interesting. Hopefully more will pop up. PS: Cats and dogs are all good. I did have a couple of foxies, but they've gone now. My cats would hunt them. Always a laugh.
That's truly amazing - I like the colour too. It looks like the white stuff would have rubbed-off to expose some of the purple?
I like your car key tag but it my case would substitute "dog" for "cat".
Interesting spotting & story Neil.
Thanks, Jae. This one was a real surprise for me. I was searching for the white mushroom and didn't even recognise this at first. A cool transformation.
Cool serie of photos, Neil.