🇬🇧 leopard earthball - 🇩🇪 Leopardenfell-Hartbovist - 🇪🇪 Leopard-murukera - 🇷🇺 Ложнодождевик пятнистый 8/3/25
🆔 Scleroderma areolatum Ehrenb.
ℹ️ Hymenium: Internal gleba: initial whitish-flesh, turning dark violet-black or olive-brown and powdery at maturity, ruptures irregularly at the apex
ℹ️ Cap: No cap; fruit bodies globose to subglobose, peridium thin (<1mm), yellowish-cream turning ochre brown, with distinctly small brown scales
❌ Hymenium Attachment: N/A
ℹ️ Stipe: With a short whitish pseudostipe with white rhizomorphs present, base often root-like
🟤 Spore print dark purplish-black to olive-brown through maturation
🌳 Ectomycorrhizal with oaks, on damp, clay-rich soils in mixed woodlands, garden edges, mossy margins, open woodland litter, in small groups from summer through autumn
🤮 Poisonous—may cause vomiting, profuse sweating, collapse, and fainting
📏 Fruit body 1-5 cm across, pseudostipe ≤2cm when present
🧪 Surface turns red to reddish-brown or dark red upon application of 5% KOH
👃 Faint, slightly sweet
👅 Bitter or indistict
🔬 Globose to subglobose, dense spines (1-2µm), 11-15µm diameter, not reticulate, inamyloid, pale yellow-brown in KOH
🔤 Small, terrestrial earthball with a tough yellow rind flecked in small brown scales forming a leopard-like pattern
🇬🇧 leopard earthball - 🇩🇪 Leopardenfell-Hartbovist - 🇪🇪 Leopard-murukera - 🇷🇺 Ложнодождевик пятнистый