View source for Phil Bendle Collection:Scleroderma bovista (Potato Earthball)

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'''Kingdom:''' Fungi<br />
'''Division''': Basidiomycota<br />
'''Class:''' Agaricomycetes<br />
'''Order:''' Boletales<br />
'''Family''': Sclerodermataceae<br />
'''Genus:''' Scleroderma<br />
'''Species:''' S. bovista<br />
'''Binomial name:''' Scleroderma bovista<br />
'''Synonyms:''' Scleroderma verrucosum var. bovista, Scleroderma verrucosum subsp. Bovista, Phlyctospora fusca, Scleroderma texense<br />
'''Common names''': Potato Earthball

Scleroderma bovista is a cosmopolitan, terrestrial, mycorrhizal mushroom. It can be found scattered throughout New Zealand. It can be found growing alone, scattered, or gregariously in open areas; usually in grass but sometimes in mulched areas.<br />
Scleroderma bovista’s sporocarp is globose or tuberiforme in shape and 2-5 cm across. Its peridium (outer skin) is firm dry and smooth when young but developing cracks when mature. This skin is about 1 mm thick. The sporocarp is a pale orange-yellow when young, turning a reddish brown on maturity. If a drop of KOH (Potassium hydroxide) is placed on the surface it should yield a red reaction. The peridium covers a black to purplish black, dry, spongy mass called the gleba. The gleba is a solid mass of spores, generated within an enclosed area within the sporocarp. The continuous maturity of the sporogenous cells leave the spores behind as a powdery mass that can be easily blown away through cracks in the peridium. 

[http://ketenewplymouth.peoplesnetworknz.info/image_files/0000/0013/3938/1-Potato_Earthball_Scleroderma_bovista.jpg] 

A photo of a potato earthball cut open showing the dark gleba that contains the spores.<br />
[http://ketenewplymouth.peoplesnetworknz.info/image_files/0000/0013/3943/1-Scleroderma_bovista.jpg]<br />


Thanks to Wikipedia for text and information: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/








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[[Category:Fungi]]
[[Category:Phil Bendle Collection]]