Dear Chloe, Brynnlee, and Finn,
Hi guys! You won't believe what I saw the other day. Presenting to y'all, the great Battarrea phalloides.
This mushroom is part of the Stalked Puffball family and known by some as the fun Desert Drumstick. It's quite woody and scaly as you can see, but above all else, ROBUST. The first time I ever learned of Stalked Puffballs was at my first meeting as a member of the Los Angeles Mycological Society (go LAMS!) and the photo being shared was of a stalked puffball breaking. through. concrete. to emerge in someone's backyard. Plants and fungi can be surprisingly strong in that way. The fungi that do so tend to also persist for a while, unlike mushrooms that pop up and disappear in a few days. I've seen this specimen for a few weeks now- it's structure and tissue being dry, fibrous, and woolly helps it persist for a longer period than the wet, soft mycelial tissue that makes up most other evanescent mushrooms.
The thing to know about Battarrea is the unbelievable amount of spores it releases, likely in the billions, with ease. It doesn't bother itself with gills or pores- the head itself is a spore sac that pushes it's hat off (an exoperidium, shown on the right) and that's it! The spores are free to take to the wind and boy do they. One of my professors shared a story about a biology class at UC Berkeley, where the undergraduates sampled the air in the room as a lab experiment. Around HALF of the microbes in the air samples were Battarrea spores. Indeed if you bring this mushroom somewhere, there isn't mushroom for anything else.
Where and when to find it: Battarrea phalloides is typically found in dry, sandy areas (arid, semi-arid) around the world. I found a few reports that Battarrea might associate with some plants, but not limited . Our specimen here might have been associated with the pine tree in the background. In David Aurora's Mushrooms Demystified, the entree for B. phalloides states that in North America is found around the beginning of fall, often after late summer thunderstorms- which is exactly the conditions under which I found this one!
Lastly, as if this great Stalked Puffball needed any help dispersing it's spores, it also has the assistance of its friendly neighborhood pillbugs. This is one of many fascinating interactions between insects and fungi, and I look forward to hearing about these little relationships as dedicated mycologists and entomologists alike continue to uncover them in the future. If you want a real treat, look up the fungal gardens of leaf-cutter ants. Though the winter season draws ever-nearer, don't forget to keep your eye out for the last fungi of the year.
Happy hunting!
