Puffball – Red Marks on Top
![tomtom | Walter Reeves: The Georgia Gardener](https://t9e4s3i5.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/tomtom.jpg)
Q: Can you tell me what this is? It was on the ground in Big Canoe.
A: Retired Fernbank naturalist David Funderburk says it is a puffball. Specifically Calostoma microsporum or Calostoma cinnabarina. The puffball consists of a chambered, rough-gelatinous, spongy stalk topped by a spore case that has a complex set of walls and that opens by a lobed mouth.
Calostoma means beautiful mouth, a reference to the bright red teeth.
David got the information from A Field Guide To Southern Mushrooms by Nancy Smith Weber and Alexander H. Smith.