Giant puffball or Many-rooted earthball

Fruit body globular or slightly flattened, with no distinction between cap and stem — from the outside it looks like a big white ball or a loaf of bread. Surface smooth, leathery, white at first, then yellowing and browning; in mature ones it cracks and peels.

Fruiting body 3-10 cm across, round to flattened-round, with no distinct stem. The skin is thick (3-5 mm), leathery and tough, colored yellow-brown, ocher-brown, with a fine felty-fibrous surface. As it matures it splits open into 4-6 radiating lobes like a star, revealing the dark spore mass inside. Once open, the star shape stays on the ground.

Internal hymenophore: the spores form inside the fruit body (gasteromycete development). In young mushrooms the firm gleba — the flesh — is pure white and uniform throughout. As it matures, it turns into a yellow-green mass of spores — a powder that disperses through cracks in the skin.

The spores form inside the fruiting body, in the gleba. In young specimens the gleba is whitish at first, very quickly (within a day or two) turning bluish-gray-purple, and in mature ones completely purplish-black and powdery. The spore print is dark purplish-black.

There is no stem in the classic sense. The fruit body is attached to the soil by thin white mycelial cords. The lower part may be slightly narrowed, forming a pseudostem.

No stem. The fruiting body is attached to the substrate by short, threadlike rhizomorphs (coarse whitish strands of mycelium).

Flesh (gleba) evenly white when young, firm, juicy, with no cavities. Taste delicate, slightly nutty. Once yellowness or an ammonia smell appears, eating it is out of the question — such a mushroom is already toxic.

Flesh (gleba) whitish in young specimens, but very quickly turns bluish to gray-purple; purplish-black and powdery in mature ones. The dark bluish color of the young flesh is a diagnostic feature of earthballs. The outer skin is dense and leathery, and noticeably resists the knife.

A young mushroom smells pleasant, unobtrusive, slightly mealy. Mature and overripe specimens have a sharp, spicy, ammonia smell — a signal that the mushroom is no longer edible.

Faint, neutral, or with a rubbery/rotten note in mature specimens. Not pleasantly mushroomy.