Medicinal Monday - Puffballs

It is hard to imagine how Native Americans accumulated information about edible, and medicinal fungi or mushrooms in their geographic region. There are about 160 examples of Lycoperdaceae or puffballs in the world. Puffballs are named for the fact that puffs of spores are released when the dry powdery tissue of the mature plant is disturbed. While most puffballs are poisonous, some are edible at certain stages in their growth and depending on what genre they belong to. Native Americans found some clever uses for puffballs from the Lycoperdaceae family that grow all over North America.

Common puffball (Lycoperdon perlatum)

About Lycoperdaceae

Puffballs have a two-layered skin that forms a ball-like structure with spores inside. The mushrooms are white and firm inside when they are young. As they mature, they turn into a mass of brown, powdery spores as they dry. As the outer skin begins to decay, the spores are released through a hole in the top. All members of the true puffball family are considered edible before the development of the gleba, they are pure white inside with no gills. Toxic puffballs and look-a-likes have gills and they are not white inside. True puffballs do not have a visible stalk or stem. None of the stalked puffballs are edible. The common distinguishing feature of a true puffball is that they don't have an open cap with gills, rather, their spores are produced internally. All false puffballs should be avoided, they are hard like a rock or brittle and not edible. Be aware that there are a number of false puffballs that look similar to true puffballs and that they are deadly. Once a true puffball has passed its edible stage it will begin to turn yellow or green inside. Puffballs are most often found in soil or on decaying wood in grassy areas and in woods.

Fruit bodies may grow singly, scattered, in groups, or—as shown here—in clusters. Lycoperdon perlatum

Culinary, Ceremonial and Medicinal Uses

Puhpohwee is an old Algonquian word meaning, "to swell up in stature suddenly and silently from an unseen source of power."  This certainly describes the way puffballs in the Lycoperdaceae family grow. Some Native Americans called them ghost make-up, ground ghosts, corpse, or frog's navel. The Blackfeet of the American Plains portrayed giant puffballs as large white circles on their teepees around the tops and bottom to protect the people living in them. They also burned ripe puffballs to keep ghosts away. Many Native American communities believe that puffballs are stars fallen from the heavens for the people's benefit during great celestial events. In the early stages of growth, puffballs were prized as a source of food. 

Fruit bodies of the puffball mushroom Lycoperdon pyriforme growing on a decaying pine log.

The Dakota, Ponca, Omaha, and other tribes of the Plains used puffballs to stop the flow of blood. The Cherokee would place a small fresh piece of puffball on a newborn's navel until the umbilical cord healed. The Menominee, Potawatomi, Iroquois, Zuni, and Rappahannock used powdered puffballs and their ripe spores as talcum. The Blackfeet drank and inhaled spore infusions to stop nosebleeds and hemorrhages. They also use spores to treat eye infections and to draw foreign objects out.

Puffball Releasing Spores

Did You Know...

One of the Dakota names for puffball was "Hokhi" which means baby's navel. 

Some Blackfoot men wear puffball necklaces on a strip of leather because of their earthy perfume.

Puffballs were traditionally used in Tibet for making ink by burning them, grinding the ash, then putting them in water, and adding a glue-like liquid that was pressed for a long time until it made a black substance that was used as ink.

Puffballs are sometimes found in circles called "fairy rings." 

A mature giant puffball contains trillions of spores!

One of the largest giant puffballs ever found was 59 inches!

**Please do not go out and try to forage puffball mushrooms, an incorrect guess can kill if it turns out to be an Aminita.