Toadstool Tuesday

Pear-shaped Puffball - Apioperdon pyriforme

Good evening, friends,

This week’s mushroom is the Pear-shaped Puffball (Apioperdon pyriforme). While we’ve had a bit of a drought for fall fungi, these puffballs just popped up last Friday on the preserve. Puffballs are engaging mushrooms because they’re edible while young and white in the center (below), but with age the skin cracks and the spores performatively puff out. Let’s see what else they’ve got going on.

This picture is from Friday when the puffballs were young and fresh. Notice the small black spines on the tan exterior.

Fun Facts

There is limited amount of research about this fungus but the research spans a wide range of potential applications. One study looked at how the spores of the fungus maintain a “stable monodisperse aerosol” that can be used as a cheap but effective way to calibrate optical instruments (Reference 2). The spores might be too stable and monodisperse, though, because they can act as allergens for people susceptible to airborne allergies. There are even two recorded cases of fatal “lycoperdonosis” in dogs where spores got lodged in their lungs and lymph nodes. Dead dogs might set the bar at a record low for the least fun fact we’ve ever had :( , but fortunately there are only two known cases in recorded history.

As with the Pholiota from last week, there is also antiviral potential with A. pyriforme. A study out of Russia showed that a water extract of A. pyriforme showed more antiviral activity against the A/H5N1 bird flu virus than the prescription flu treatment Tamiflu (Reference 4).

The mushroom is edible when the interior is uniformly white.

The fungus used to be Lycoperdon pyriforme but was recently reclassified to the genus Apioperdon. Apio- comes from the Latin Apium which means “celery” and perdon means “fart”. The name “celery farts” is off-putting, sure, but compared to Lycoperdon which translates to “wolf farts” it actually seems like an olfactory improvement. The species epithet pyriforme means “pear-shaped” and refers to the rotundness of the mushroom.

You can find them solitarily but you’ll usually encounter these puffballs in clusters on logs/stumps.

Ecology

The fungus is saprobic and can be found digesting both dead hardwood and softwood (deciduous trees and conifers). The fungus exists on all six major continents and fruits in the fall, particularly October in the northeast. The pear shape becomes more pronounced as the mushroom ages, and these mushrooms can persist over winter. I went to a stump where I saw puffballs last fall and there were some decrepit little guys still hanging around, but no new puffballs have popped up there to this point.

The spore matter inside the puffball is called the gleba, the sac which contains the gleba is called a peridium, and the hole that develops in the peridium to release spores is called an ostiole.

Dessicated puffballs with their brown spores still inside, still slowly dispersing with the wind.

There are likely a bunch of genetically distinct but physically similar species masquerading under the one name A. pyriforme. The other “pear-shaped” puffball you’ll commonly encounter is Lycoperdon perlatum, but they grow out of soil and are larger than A. pyriforme. There is also the common earthball (Scleroderma citrinum) which grows out of both soil and wood and is more closely related to boletes than puffballs. S. citrinum is round (they don’t have the stalk, the pear shape, of A. pyriforme and L. perlatum) and are generally larger than both of the puffballs.

The cobwebby mycelium and the overall pear shape are helpful identifiers for this mushroom. This picture was taken today, notice the spines aren’t as prominent as they are in the first picture.

This weekend I’m heading up to Cape Cod to hit the Northeastern Mycological Federation foray in Hyannis. Hope to see some of you there, but I’ll take plenty of pictures to share in next week’s publication with everyone who isn’t,

Aubrey

References:

1. Kuo, M. (2016 November). Lycoperdon pyriforme. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/lycoperdon_pyriforme.html

2. Zhirnov AA, Kudryashova NN, Kudryashova OB, Korovina NV, Pavlenko AA, Titov SS. Spores of puffball fungus Lycoperdon pyriforme as a reference standard of stable monodisperse aerosol for calibration of optical instruments. PLoS One. 2019 Jan 30;14(1):e0210754. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210754. PMID: 30699153; PMCID: PMC6353166.

3. Alenghat T, Pillitteri CA, Bemis DA, Kellett-Gregory L, Jackson KV, Kania SA, Donnell RL, Van Winkle T. Lycoperdonosis in two dogs. J Vet Diagn Invest. 2010 Nov;22(6):1002-5. doi: 10.1177/104063871002200629. PMID: 21088194.

4. Makarevich EV, Teplyakova TV, Mazurkov OY, Filippova EI, Mazurkova NA. Antiviral Activity of Some Compounds of Gasteroid Mushrooms from Western Siberia. Int J Med Mushrooms. 2024;26(1):45-53. doi: 10.1615/IntJMedMushrooms.2023051031. PMID: 38305261.

5. https://mushroomsofct.com/mushroom-index/apioperdon-pyriforme/#:~:text=The%20name%20Apioperdon%20pyriforme%20is,mushroom's%20strong%20odor%20when%20mature.

6. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/972793-Apioperdon-pyriforme