Scleroderma citrinum    Pers.:Pers. 

common name(s) : Common Earthball 

New classification: Basidiomycota/Agaricomycotina/Agaricomycetes/Agaricomycetidae/Boletales/Sclerodermataceae  
Former classification: Basidiomycota/Homobasidiomycetes/Gasteromycetideae/Sclerodermatales/Sclerodermataceae  

synonyms: Scleroderma aurantium, Scleroderma vulgare 
(unconfirmed synonyms: Scleroderma aurantiacum)  

edibility : poisonous

photo gallery of  Scleroderma citrinum
photo gallery of  Scleroderma citrinum potential confusions with  Scleroderma citrinum toxicity of Scleroderma citrinum genus Scleroderma  

The fruiting body is irregularly globular, tough, cracked, with adpressed brown scales on a pale background, the skin being 2 to 5mm thick, orange-yellow then ochre, without stem, but adhering to ground through strong mycelial strands.

The flesh is blackish, veined with white in the youth, turning later to powder; its taste is mild; the odour is unpleasant, of rubber or metal.

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

It grows on the ground, in broad-leaved and coniferous woods, in warm places, on a rather acid soil, with oaks, pines, cedars, cypresses, birches, chestnut trees, beeches, heather.

The fruiting period takes place from July to December.
Dimensions: width of fruiting body approximately 8 cm (between 2 and 15 cm)
  total height approximately 6 cm (between 4 and 8 cm)

Distinctive features : globular shape with scaly ant thick outer skin (up to 5mm); brown scales on a lemon-yellow then buff background; dark slate-brown interior, streaked with white veins in the youth, eventually turning to powder; unpleasant smell, of metal or rubber; the most frequent earthball

Scleroderma citrinum is frequent and very widely present in the forest of Rambouillet, and is very frequent, more generally speaking .
here should be the distribution map of Scleroderma citrinum in the forest of Rambouillet
Above : distribution map of Scleroderma citrinum in the forest of Rambouillet



page updated on 14/01/18