Puffball is the name of a group of fungi that produce ball- or pear-shaped fruit with completely enclosed spores. Many puffballs have white flesh. They are edible until the developing spores begin to color the flesh. When a puffball is mature, the inside is a mass of powdery, yellowish, purplish, or olive-colored spores. Sometimes an opening, or crater, develops in the top of a puffball. Clouds of tiny spores that look like puffs of smoke may come out through the opening when the fruit is touched or squeezed. For this reason, one kind of puffball is called the devil’s snuffbox.
