Puff Ball Mushrooms, a few kinds

[Jane308]

I have a patch of woods that all wooded with locust trees.

Nothing but these huge puff balls grow in there near the end of summer close to fall.

They aren't the kind that explode like a volcano and have the brown spores puffing out of it.
They are like sponges. You can actually flatten them like pancakes, giving off a cloud of puff, then it reshapes as though you never touched it. They look exactly the same as the puffed ones.

Does anyone know what they are called?
I'd like to eat them, but would like to look them up by name.

Blessings for your help...

[charles p]

When I was a child, we called them toad stools.

[Junior1942]

Jane, a picture would be nice.

PS: check http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Mushrooms.Folder/Giant%20Puffball.html

[woodchukhntr]

As I recall, all real puffballs are edible, although not all taste good.  I had a Polish neighbor that visited Poland and amazed her relatives by eating the puffballs she found there.  The locals thought that they were not edible and were pleasently surprised.

[Spector]

In Indiana there is a false puff-ball.  I forget the name, but I think it started with S.  As I recall one way to tell it is that the meat in the false puff-ball was not solid.  It is toxic as I recall. 

I have eaten giant white and tan puff-balls.  I am not wild about them, but they are not terrible either.  Not in the same league with oyster mushrooms or morels, though..........Mike

[melsdad]

I get a few of the puffballs with the brown spores (dust) inside growing in my yard every year in the same spot. They don't exactly look apetizing to me so I had never though of picking them. I just hit them with the mower, and they grow back again by the next week . I guess next year I will pay more attention to them, and try to solidly identify them, and maybe I will try one.

[Jane308]

I've looked at so many sites and pictures, but still nothing that describes it particularly.

I've looked up relationship to trees it's under, and nothing. It's not on any other part of the woods. Hmmmmmmmm

Will keep on looking... It's much different then the others in a few ways, it never has a single exit hole for spores to come out of. It starts out white and rounded, or oval shaped, after it matures, it looks just like a rounded sponge. When stepped on it flattens and spores cloud of it. When you take your foot off, it goes right back to it's original shape...

Thanks for all the replies and help trying to locate. I'll find it sooner or later on the web.

(stilll searching all my drives for pics)