Common puffball or Umber-brown puffball

The fruiting body is inverted pear-shaped or club-shaped, 2-6 cm tall, 1.5-4 cm wide at the top. The upper (fertile) part is a rounded head; the lower (sterile) part is a narrowed “stalk” 1-3 cm long. Color: young ones are white or cream; with age yellowish grey to brown. A telltale feature — the surface is covered in coarse spiny warts (1-2 mm) that gradually fall off, leaving a net-like trace.

The fruiting body (a puffball has no cap in the usual sense — the whole fruiting body comes "in one package") is pear-shaped or round with a narrowed base, 2-5 cm across and 3-6 cm tall. The surface is densely covered with short dark brown or umber spines that rub off with age, leaving a net-like pattern of paler patches. In a young mushroom the color is almost blackish-brown, in a mature one chestnut-brown to umber.

Internal hymenophore (gleba). The young gleba is white, dense and uniform. With age it turns yellow, then green, and becomes a dark olive-grey powdery spore mass. At the top of a mature fruiting body an opening forms, through which the spores puff out when a raindrop hits (hence the Ukrainian name, “rain mushroom”). Spore print dark olive-brown.

The spore-bearing tissue is enclosed inside the fruiting body (this is a gasteromycete — the spores ripen inside). At first the flesh is whitish-gray, soft, with the spongy look typical of the genus. With age it turns purple-brown, and then becomes a dark olive or chocolate-brown powdery mass of spores. The spores escape through a small pore that opens at the top of the fruiting body once it is mature.

There is no separate stem — the fruiting body is all one piece. The lower sterile part is a “stalk-base” 1-3 cm tall, somewhat narrower than the top, white and scaly, passing into whitish rhizomorphs (mycelial cords) in the soil.

The pseudostem (false stem) is well defined — a cone-shaped narrowing downward to 1-2 cm thick, with no clear boundary between the "cap" and the "stem". Flesh of the stem stays sterile (no spores), spongy, and shrinks with age.

The flesh of young ones is pure white, uniform, dense, with a delicate pleasant flavor. With age it turns yellow, then green, and becomes a spore mass. The test: cut it open: uniform white = good to eat; any other color = throw it out.

In a young mushroom it is whitish-gray, soft, spongy. It quickly takes on a purple-brown tint — this is the fundamental difference from the white-fleshed edible puffballs. The smell is faint and neutral.

Faint, pleasant mushroomy smell with no sharp notes. Taste mild and neutral — it takes on the flavors of the dish.

Faint, neutral, barely noticeable. No distinctive aromas. Don't taste it — the mushroom is inedible.