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Pear-shaped Puffball
The common puffball of rotting wood, often fruiting in dense clusters on stumps, logs and wood chips. It is pear-shaped, cream to reddish-brown and finely granular rather than spiny. Thick white rhizomorphs at the base and its woody habitat separate it from Lycoperdon species, and DNA work moved it to its own genus.
Edible when immature, while the interior is still white throughout. Slice every puffball top to bottom before eating: it must be pure white and uniform inside. A cap-and-gill outline means a young Amanita egg, possibly deadly (amatoxins); a firm, thick-skinned ball that is purple-black inside is a poisonous Scleroderma earthball.
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