Puffball mushrooms are some of the funniest-looking mushrooms in nature because they are perfectly round and don’t have a cap or a stem like other mushrooms. They look like smooth, white balls just sitting on the ground! Puffballs can be as tiny as a marble or as enormous as a beach ball. The biggest puffball ever found was over four feet wide, which is bigger than most kids! When puffballs are young and white on the inside, some kinds are safe to eat and taste a bit like tofu. Giant puffballs can weigh as much as 44 pounds, which is about as heavy as a big dog.
The most amazing thing about puffball mushrooms is what happens when they get old. As a puffball dries out, it turns brown and the inside fills up with trillions of tiny, tiny spores. If you step on it, poke it, or even if a raindrop lands on it, a big “puff” of spores shoots out like a cloud of brown smoke! The wind then carries those spores far away so new puffballs can grow somewhere else. A single giant puffball can hold over seven trillion spores inside it, which is more than the number of stars you can see in the sky. Remember: you should NEVER touch or eat any wild mushroom unless a grown-up who knows about mushrooms says it is safe!
