A round puffball whose white outer skin flakes away to reveal a shiny bronze to copper-colored inner skin. Mature spore cases break from their small cord and are blown about, releasing spores through a crack at the top, and they often persist over winter. It is common in North America in pastures, stables, roadsides, lawns and open woods.
Edible while the interior is still firm and pure white; mild taste and odor. Slice every specimen top to bottom: an outline of a cap and gills means it is an Amanita button, which may be deadly (amatoxins), and a firm dark or purplish-black interior means an earthball (Scleroderma), which causes gastrointestinal poisoning. Discard any with yellowing, greenish or brown interiors.
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Habitat
Singly, scattered or in groups on the ground in corrals, stables, pastures, roadsides, lawns, parks and open woods; old spore cases persist and may overwinter.
Distribution
Widespread in North America. Few documented records elsewhere (Sakha Republic in Russia; tentatively Brazil and the Galápagos); reports from Turkey are doubted.
Characteristics
Fruitbody: egg-shaped to spherical, up to 8 cm, attached by a small cord (rhizomorph) that usually breaks at maturity. Exoperidium: white, flaking off with age. Endoperidium: shiny, bronze to copper. Gleba: white and firm when young, then greenish, then brown and powdery. Spores: 3.5-4.5 µm, spherical, smooth under light microscopy, with very short pedicels.
