If you glance across the yard and see what looks like a stray soccer ball, take a closer look. Could be that it’s actually a giant puffball mushroom, or in technical terms, a Calvatia Gigantea.
This one was seen in a wooded part of a Wellesley yard, but they are also commonly found in meadows, typically in the late summer and into autumn.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, they are edible when young, but we’re scaredy cats about mushrooms in the wild, even if the wild in this context means tame old suburbia. We’ll let Whole Foods continue to supply us with our fungi needs.