Pear-shaped Puffball

Description

The pear-shaped puffball (formerly Polish purchawka gruszkowata) is a small puffball with a pear-shaped or club-shaped fruiting body 2–7 cm tall. The surface is rough, finely warted, in colour from white-ochre to grey-ochre, usually browner at the top. Only very young fruiting bodies are white; they darken with age and a pore opens at the top, from which the spores escape.

Unlike most puffballs it grows on wood: on fallen logs and stumps of coniferous and deciduous trees, often in large, dense groups. Sometimes it looks as if it were growing on the ground, but buried wood lies underneath. The fruiting bodies appear from June to October, and in Poland the species is common. At the base thick, whitish mycelial cords can be seen.

It is not easy to confuse with other puffballs, because they grow on the ground. If the interior is yellowish, brown or olive, or the outline of a formed mushroom is visible, they should not be collected.

Identification features

Cap

No typical cap or stem — fruiting body pear-shaped or club-shaped, height 2–7 cm, diameter up to 3 cm. Surface rough, mealy, very finely warted, at the top with tiny, long-persistent low spines. Colour from white-ochre through grey-nut to grey-ochre, the upper part usually brownish; only very young fruiting bodies are white. Endoperidium rough, as if floury, fragile, from white-cream to light brown (coppery-tinged in young ones), matt and papery in old ones. At the top a small mound with a small pore through which the spores escape; the pore is at first round, later with ragged edges.

Hymenophore (underside of the cap)

No gills or tubes. The interior of the fruiting body is divided into the gleba (spore-bearing part) and the subgleba.

Stem

No true stem; narrowed base (subgleba). At the base whitish, fairly thick rhizomorphs (mycelial cords) penetrating the substrate.

Flesh

Subgleba fine-chambered, white in young fruiting bodies, grey-brown in older ones. Gleba of a similar colour, olive-brown in older fruiting bodies, gradually passing into a clearly visible, elongated columella. Smell and taste: no data; do not taste the flesh of unknown mushrooms.

Spore print and spores

Spore print colour: no data (spores yellow-brown). Spores globose, smooth, yellow-brown, 3–4 µm in diameter, often with a short sterigma, with a shiny droplet inside.

Habitat and distribution

Ecology. Saprotroph growing on dead coniferous and deciduous wood: on fallen logs and stumps, sometimes apparently on the ground, in reality on buried wood. Usually in large, dense groups.

Distribution. Common on all continents except Antarctica and Africa, also on many islands; in Poland common. Not legally protected in Poland.

Fruiting. From June to October.

What can it be confused with?

• Lycoperdon perlatum (the common puffball) — Grows on the ground and is covered with spines, not on wood.
• Lycoperdon umbrinum (Polish: purchawka brunatna) — Also darkens early and has whitish mycelial cords, but thin ones; grows on the ground, not on wood, and has a different surface.

Never rely on a single feature. If you are not sure — do not pick it; show the mushroom to a qualified mushroom expert.

Interesting facts

• It is the only species of the genus Apioperdon, created in 2017 by Alfredo Vizzini.
• The species was already described in 1774 by Jacob Christian Schäffer.
• The Polish name "purchawka gruszkowata" comes from Józef Jundziłł (1830); in 2025 the name "lignopurchawka gruszkowata" was recommended, because the species was separated from the genus Lycoperdon.
• Unlike most puffballs it grows on wood, not on the ground.