Puffball

We returned to Lasdon Arboretum today with my good friend and her son. We ran across this mushroom, which I had never seen before. Fortunately my friend could identify it as a Puffball, and when she stepped on it, the spores were released in puffs of green smoke. The boys were fascinated by it. Since it was no longer attached to the ground anyway, we let the boys loose on it, eliciting squeals of joy. The puffball is now much worse for wear, but I have a feeling we'll see some more puffballs in that spot in the future as the boys appeared to have released all of the spores the puffball had.

There are more pictures from today here.