5.
AN ESSEX PUFFBALL SURVEY by J. F. SKINNER
May I ask for your help with a puffball
survey of Essex? Everyone must have seen
these curious fungi ranging in size from a
pea to a football and I hope that, by taking
a good look at this group, we may learn which
species are found in the County and their
habitat preferences.
In puffballs the spores
develop internally in a
tissue called the GLEBA and
are not shed until the fruit
body is mature when the outer
layer, the PERIDIUM, either
opens by a pore or breaks down
completely allowing the spores
to be blown away or "puffed"
out by falling raindrops.
11 species of puffball have been recorded
from Essex out of the 22 species known from
Britain and, with interesting ones known from
Norfolk and Suffolk, a survey may well turn up
others.
Now for a brief "run through" of some
Essex species. BOVISTA is a genus with no
obvious subgleba. These small round puffballs
tend to become loose and then roll around on
the ground when mature. The outer peridium or
EXOPERIDIUM is thin and
flakes off exposing the
inner or ENDOPERIDIUM.
In Bovista plumbea this
inner layer is dull
lead—grey in colour
while in the apparently
rarer small B. nigrescens