A pack of wolf farts

Puffballs are the reproductive organs of fungi living underground or in dead wood. They come in many sizes, some as small as a marble and some as large as a basketball. Their surfaces may be smooth, covered with small or large warts, or ornamented with spikes. When mature they are full of tiny spores which are eventually released through an opening into the air and dispersed by the wind to form new colonies. The clouds of spores escaping from the puffball have given rise to some of its common names, for example the Devil's snuff-box and the Wolf-fart. Watch the video here.

These gregarious little beauties are stump puffballs Lycoperdon pyriforme which  make their living by recycling dead wood. The generic name Lycoperdon  means 'wolf's flatulence' while the specific epithet pyriforme has nothing at all to do with funeral pyres,  but comes from the Latin meaning pear-shaped.