Mushroom identification

[Geoff]

Hello,

My name is Chris Malley.  I am a grade 10 student at Elements, an environmental education program.

We were cutting trails in a cedar bush, and I was raking and we found this mushroom.  We are interested in it and would like to identify it.  Can you tell us what it is?

Thank you,

Chris

[Bro. Noble]

Chris,
Are you sure that's not a Gall that has fallen from a tree limb? If it was laying loose and not attached to anything I'll bet it is.

Noble

[Jeff]

Thats what it looks like to me too, but maybe its just the angle of the picture.

Could this be it?

[Tillaway]

If it is a mushroom, then it might be a truffle.  There are allot of species of them.  Raking around is how you find them if the squirrels and deer don't get there first.

[CHARLIE]

Chris, is it shaped like a ball or is the picture just showing the top of it? :P

[Geoff]

Guys,

Thank you for writing me back.

It is round, approximately 2.5 cm in diameter, and when I poked it, a red liquid came out of it.  The shell is hard, and has a series of reddish veins running along the outside.  The skin is brown.  I found it unattached on the ground.

I looked through books, and did a mushroom identification, but couldn't find anything that matched it.

Thanks,

Chris

[Jeff]

When you say the shell is hard, do you mean kinda like a stiff paper hard? If so it sounds even more to be lika a Gall

[CHARLIE]

I remember when I was a boy in Florida their was a fungus we called a Puffball.   It was a gray leathery ball on a short stem and it had a rust red powder inside (spores) if I remember correctly.