Lycoperdon echinatum    Pers.:Pers. 

common name(s) : Spiny Puffball 

New classification: Basidiomycota/Agaricomycotina/Agaricomycetes/Agaricomycetidae/Agaricales/Agaricaceae  
Former classification: Basidiomycota/Homobasidiomycetes/Gasteromycetideae/Lycoperdales/Lycoperdaceae  
(unconfirmed synonyms: Lycoperdon constellatum)  

edibility : inedible

photo gallery of Lycoperdon echinatum
photo gallery of Lycoperdon echinatum potential confusions with Lycoperdon echinatum toxicity of Lycoperdon echinatum genus Lycoperdon  

The fruiting body is spherical or pear-shaped, covered with rather long (3-6 mm) spines, disappearing later to reveal an net-like pattern, chocolate brown, with a short or absent stem, in any case not differentiated from the fertile head.

The fertile surface is internal: the spores are released as dust when mature. The spore print is purple-brown.

It grows on the ground, in broad-leaved woods, on a rather calcareous soil, with beech.

The fruiting period takes place from July to December.
Dimensions: width of fruiting body approximately 4 cm (between 2 and 6 cm)
  total height approximately 5 cm (between 2 and 9 cm)
  width of stem approximately 10 mm (between 0 and 20 mm)

Distinctive features : brown fruting body with globular shape, covered with 3 - 6mm long curved spines, converging at the tips by 3 or 4; when they fall, the skin forms a reticulate pattern

Lycoperdon echinatum is quite rare and localised in the forest of Rambouillet, and is infrequent, more generally speaking .
here should be the distribution map of Lycoperdon echinatum in the forest of Rambouillet
Above : distribution map of Lycoperdon echinatum in the forest of Rambouillet



page updated on 14/01/18