Shroom season?

The puffballs as seen from a distance
A close-up shot of two puffballs
A view of the exploded puffball

Rain in this time of the year brings funny things. First, there's the flooded low-lying areas.

The road in front of my house isn't flat, so, the indented parts usually fills up with water.

I hate to walk on the flooded parts cos it screws up my footwear. And well, on the grassy sidewalk, some strange plants gets a chance to blossom.

This evening while I was walking the kidz, I saw a crop of mushrooms by the roadside.

Some, the size of a ping-pong ball while the large ones are as huge as a tennis ball.

The fungi are fragile and not as tough as they look. I kicked it and one if it literally exploded - releasing millions of spores into the air.

I guess that's what it was waiting for. For a dead shroom, millions will come to its funeral.

According to my Practical Mushroom Encyclopedia authored by Peter Jordan and Steven Wheeler, the said fungi was a 'Giant Puffball' or Lagermannia gigantica, but I won't put my money on it.

Said to be edible, the puffballs has solid white flesh. That's not the case when I saw the innards of an 'exploded' shroom.

There are many of these puffballs lying around. They go wasted after its short lifespan.

I wondered if any of the folks here have collected and eaten it. Possibly fatal with delirium attacks...