01/Aug/2026, 6:37 PM
Padise mõis, Padise, Harju, Eesti
Manor park, near Oak and Linden trees, partly buried in grassy disturbed soil
59°13'38.1"N 24°08'33.5"E
🌡️ 19°C ☁️ Full minor overcast 💨 Wind 270° W->E, 17 km/h
Original Instagram postScleroderma bovista
potato earthball
- Scientific identification
- Scleroderma bovista Fr.
- Family
- Sclerodermataceae
- Class
- Agaricomycetes
- Genus
- Scleroderma
Names across languages
- English: potato earthball
- German: Rotbräunlicher Kartoffelbovist
- Finnish: Tarhamukulakuukunen
- Estonian: Väike murukera
- Russian: Ложнодождевик порховковый
The scientific profile
From the latest record: 2026-08-01.
Hymenium
Enclosed within the gleba
Fruit body
Subglobose to flattened, pale straw-yellow, ochre, yellow-brown to reddish-brown, often granular and becoming finely cracked with age
Peridium
Thin, leathery and relatively fragile, ~0.5–2 mm thick; opens irregularly at the apex to release spores
Stipe
Absent, with conspicuous bundle of whitish mycelial cords
Description
Spore mass grey-brown, dark brown to nearly black at maturity
Ecology
Ecology ectomycorrhizal, growing partly buried in sandy, grassy or disturbed soil beneath broadleaved and coniferous trees (oak, pine); solitary, scattered or gregarious; late summer to autumn
Edibility
Edibility toxic
Fruit body
Fruit body small, usually ~1.5–6 cm across
Dimensions
Peridium ~0.5–2 mm thick
Flesh
Flesh immature gleba whitish and firm, later marbled grey-brown to blackish and finally powdery, outer surface often bruising pinkish
Chemical reactions
KOH peridium immediately turns red
Odour
Odour indistinct earthy
Taste
Taste mild
Microscopy
Spores globose, dark brown, strongly echinulate and partly reticulate-crested, ∅ ~9–16 µm, with projections up to ~2 µm high; basidia subglobose, 4-sterigmate and rapidly collapsing; true capillitium absent
Overview
Relatively smooth, thin-skinned earthball with a reddish bruising and dark powdery gleba
1829). Syst. Mycol. (Lundae) 3(1): 48.
Field encounters
Source hashtags
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