Earthballs are a bit like puffballs except they have a thicker skin and tend to be inedible or poisonous (though some say it's that they just "spoil" so quickly that you almost never find them in a state of supposed edibility).
Earthballs often tricky to tell apart from each other without a microscope or seeing them at multiple stages in their lifecycle but the Leopard Earthball has a few good tells like the brown cracking scales on the surface and the rapid red staining when it's cut in half.
the_artic_one in mycology
Leopard Earthball - Scleroderma Areolatum (PNW)
Earthballs are a bit like puffballs except they have a thicker skin and tend to be inedible or poisonous (though some say it's that they just "spoil" so quickly that you almost never find them in a state of supposed edibility).
Earthballs often tricky to tell apart from each other without a microscope or seeing them at multiple stages in their lifecycle but the Leopard Earthball has a few good tells like the brown cracking scales on the surface and the rapid red staining when it's cut in half.
https://programming.dev/pictrs/image/dfe45d20-6953-4aab-b7a0-aa310816a1b7.jpeg