Don't open this post until you guess what the inside of this lumpy little mushroom looks like! Were you right? Come into my post to find out -- and let me know what you guessed!

Can you see the second little mushroom on the left of the big one, trying to push its way above ground?

I found this little mushroom on the same day as that poor little potato in the Foraging Mystery Quiz. They were not even 100 yards from each other! But they have more in common than that!

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Scleroderma Mushrooms - So Under-Appreciated!

Even though its lumpy shape is odd for a mushroom, this is a mushroom, for sure. And what a tough mushroom, too! It's living in such tough surroundings -- right at the intersection of an asphalt parking lot and the cement curb! Behind the curb is an island within the parking lot, with some shrubs and weeds. The plants don't get any extra watering or care throughout the year.

But the fungus is living underground and still has enough extra energy to produce this mushroom. Mushrooms are just part of a fungus - the reproductive part, like an apple on an apple tree. So something is going right, down under all that cement and asphalt!

I'm so amazed at the conditions some fungus can survive and even do well!

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Earthballs and Dead Man's Hands? - What?

Scleroderma mushrooms are also known as Earthballs. The whole group of mushrooms that have their spores inside a ball-like structure. But while this little Earthball starts out like a ball, it doesn't stay that way. It morphs into appendages, like stubby fingers on a hand. That's how it also comes by the name Dead Man's Hand.

Note: The Dead Man's Hand is not the Dead Man's Fingers, which is a completely different mushroom - Xylaria polymorpha. And it's not the same as the Dead Man's Foot, which is another completely different mushroom - Pisolithus arhizus.

This little Scleroderma polyrhizum would get bigger and more odd-shaped if it continued to grow. Eventually, it would split open to let its spores out -- like a puffball with a big rip in it, instead of a little hole.

Top: A view from the top. You can see it already starting to rip itself open in the lower left of the body. That yellowish color that turns to black is distinctive of the S. polyrhizum, compared to the other Scleroderma mushrooms. Bottom: A view from the bottom. That attachment point is a key identification characteristic that separates this Scleroderma from other kinds, too.

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What's Inside That Scleroderma?

Have you though about what the inside will look like yet? Think about a young puffball mushroom. Inside, it's a uniform white mass, like a marshmallow. As it gets older, the white marshmallow innards turn yellow, then brown, and then into a black mass of loose spores.

That's so not what the insider of a Scleroderma looks like! Are you ready? Here it is --

Is this what you were expecting? There's not much out there in the world of mushrooms that looks like this in the center. And that center isn't soft like a puffball. It's solid! More firm than a banana, but not crisp or juicy like an apple. And it's not crumbly or flaky. Just solid - like a potato.

All the different kinds of Sclerodermas have a thick rind, too, surrounding the inner spores. There are other kinds of mushrooms with thick rinds, like the Dead Man's Foot or the Earth Stars in the Geastrum genus.

The inside of a Scleroderma is not uniform like a puffball, either. The developing spores are in specialized structures, like separate little pods or packets. The walls of the packets are just fungal hyphae -- the same as what's growing underground. How odd is that? Eventually, the break down and the maturing spores turn brown and dry out. When the Scleroderma splits open, the dry, brown spores can go blowing in the wind!

You can see the white hyphae walls better in this image. The colors inside, are more than simply black and white. That band of colors was fascinating to look at.

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Do You Have Scleroderma polyrhizum Near You?

You probably do have some S. polyrhizum near you. They grow in Asia, Europe, and from North to South America. But they spend most of their life completely underground. The earthballs pop up mostly in the summer and fall. Finding information about Scleroderma mushrooms is not the easiest task. They have been under-appreciated by scientists, too.

Have you ever seen this mushroom? I hope you do get a chance to see the multi-colored insides of a young Scleroderma polyrhizum sometime. They are quite a surprise and fascinating.

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Sources:
Original photography
Aurora, D. (1986). Mushrooms Demystified. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. 959pp.
Field key - http://www.svims.ca/council/Sclero.htm
Pacific Northwest Pictoral guide - http://www.svims.ca/council/Puffba_I.htm
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleroderma_polyrhizum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleroderma_(fungus)

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Haphazard Homestead

foraging, gardening, nature, simple living close to the land
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