Species flashcards

Description

Description: Small, gray mushroom resembling the common puffball.

Fruiting body: 1-3 cm in diameter; rounded, ball-shaped; its outer rind is white, smooth, fragile, peeling off in small pieces like eggshell, when the inner rind becomes visible, which is thin, membranous, whitish when young, later lead-gray, parchment-like.

Hymenium: Fills the entire interior of the fruiting body; when mature, a small opening appears on the upper part of the fruiting body on the inner rind, through which the spore powder escapes.

Flesh: Soft, whitish, later spongy; ochre, then liquefying, olive-greenish, brownish, finally crumbling into powder; no particular smell and taste.

Spore: Brown; 4.5-6.5 x 4-5.5μm; ellipsoid, due to the sterigma remnant (the cell that holds the spores) it has a tadpole-like appearance, thick-walled.

Occurrence: From April to November, in grassy places, meadows, pastures, mostly growing in groups, common species.

Edibility: Edible when young, as long as its flesh is whitish.

Confusion: Similar to the poisonous common earthball and the edible common puffball.

Note: The Bovista genus, which includes about 40 known species, has this mushroom as its typical species. plumbea is of Latin origin and means lead (plumbum). bovista may come from the Latin bovis, ox. Bovista comes from the old German word vohe - witch. Perhaps this is the origin of the term fairy ring.

Species description: In 1796, Christiaan Hendrik Persoon described it and gave it the scientific name Bovista plumbea, which is still the accepted scientific name.

Taxonomy

1. PhylumBasidiomycota
2. ClassAgaricomycetes
3. OrderAgaricales
4. FamilyAgaricaceae
5. GenusBovista

• Species: plumbea
• Described by: Pers. (1795)
• Hungarian name: szürke pöfeteg
• Lifestyle: soil saprotroph
• Edibility: not edible