Brown Puffball - Bovista nigrescens
A small to medium sized puffball, up to 6cm diameter. The thick outer layer is chalky white and smooth but soon cracks and falls away to reveal the the inner dark-brown layer over the spores. Spores are dispersed via an apical pore or slit.
It is similar to the Grey Puffball, Bovista plumbea, but is larger and has a brown spore sac when mature, not grey like B. plumbea.
Photograph showing inner and outer layers of skin; note size (diameter), habitat and substrate
Grassland
Occasional in Leicestershire and Rutland.
David Nicholls
Croft Hill
29 September 2011
det. R Iliffe
Melinda Bell
Bardon,Bardon Hill
24 August 2020
approx 4cm diameter .one rolling detached from mycelium
Melinda Bell
Bardon,Bardon Hill
24 August 2020
Melinda Bell
Bardon,Bardon Hill
24 August 2020
brown spore mass
Melinda Bell
Bardon,Bardon Hill
24 August 2020
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Species profile
- Common names
- Brown Bovist, Brown Puffball
- Species group:
- fungus
- Kingdom:
- Fungi
- Order:
- Agaricales
- Family:
- Lycoperdaceae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 5
- First record:
- 29/09/2011 (Nicholls, David)
- Last record:
- 25/11/2025 (Hunt, Graham)
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% of records within its species group
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