“Il Licoperdo piombino è uno dei funghi mangiativi più delicati che si conoscano. Il suo uso è pressochè generale.”—_Vitt._ All these more or less spherical white funguses furnished with a membranaceous covering, and filled when young with a white, compact, homogeneous pulp, which we call Puff-balls, are good to eat; those in most request for the table abroad, and the best, have no stem, _i. e._ no sterile base, but are prolific throughout their whole substance. One of the most common of these is the _Lycoperdon plumbeum_, of which the following excellent description is chiefly taken from Vittadini. _Bot. Char._ Body globose; when full-grown about the size of a walnut, invested with two[189] tunics, the outer one white, loosely membranaceous and fragile, sometimes smooth, at others furfuraceous; the innermost one (peridium) very tenacious, smooth, of a grey-lead colour externally, internally more or less shaggy with very fine hairs; these hairs occupy the whole cavity, and in the midst of them a prodigious number of minute granular bodies, the sporules (each of which is furnished with a long caudiform process), lie entangled. The whole plant, carefully removed from the earth, with its root still adhering, is in form not unlike one of its own seeds vastly magnified. The _L. plumbeum_ abounds in dry places, and is to be found in spring, summer, and autumn, solitary or in groups. “This,” says Vittadini, “is one of our commonest Puff-balls, and after the warm rains of summer and of autumn, myriads of these little plants suddenly springing up will often completely cover a piece of ground as if they had been sown like grain, for a crop; if we dig them up we shall find that they are connected with long fragile threads, extending horizontally underground and giving attachment to numerous smaller Puff-balls in different stages of development, which, by continuing to grow, afford fresh supplies as the old ones die off.” LYCOPERDON BOVISTA, _Linn._ Subdivision GASTEROMYCETES, _Fries_. Tribe 3. TRICHOSPERMI. Family 1. TRICHOGASTRES. “Vescie buone da friggere” (Tuscan vernacular name). “La sua carne candida compatta si presta facilemente a tutte le speculazioni del cuoco.”—_Vitt._ This differs from the last-mentioned Puff-ball in many particulars; in the first place it is much larger (sometimes attaining to vast dimensions), its shape is different, being that of an inverted cone; never globular, the flesh also is more compact, while the membrane which holds what is first the pulp and afterwards the seed, is very thin and tender; the seed, moreover, has no caudal appendage; and finally, a considerable portion of the base is sterile, in all which additional particulars it is unlike the _Lycoperdon plumbeum_. The plant is sessile, a purple-black fragile membrane contains the spores, which are also sessile,[190] and of the same colour as the peridium.