E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Features include 1) a fruitbody that is nearly spherical to pear-shaped, coated with short purplish brown to reddish brown to cinnamon buff spines over a pale pinkish brown ground color, 2) an inner layer pitted after the spines fall off, 3) a spore mass that is white at first, then purplish brown and powdery, 4) sterile base small or absent, 5) growth on decaying, mossy, hardwood logs and stumps, and 6) round weakly spiny to smooth spores.

Lycoperdon subincarnatum was reported from BC according to Redhead(5), but the source was not given. There is a BC collection at Pacific Forestry Centre from 1962 determined by J.W. Groves. Schalkwijk-Barendsen lists it for PQ, AB, and the US. Arora says it is found "mainly in eastern North America". The New York Botanical Garden has collections from PQ, MA, ME, MI, NH, PA, and VT, (NYBG).

Outer Surface:
1-3cm wide, nearly spherical to pear-shaped, "often laterally flattened when growing in clusters"; "coated with short, purplish brown to reddish brown spines over a pale pinkish brown ground color", (Bessette), up to 3.5cm across, almost spherical "or with a short, pinched, yellowish sterile base"; covering two-layered, outer layer "brown with pyramidal cones of medium long, brown spines", (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), "with cinnamon-buff to brown spines when young" (Arora), with cinnamon buff to brownish spines and warts in groups when young, (Phillips)

Inner layer:
"pitted after the spines have fallen off" when mature; "splitting irregularly to release spores", (Bessette), reticulate after outer layer disappears; apical pore, (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), conspicuously pitted after spines have worn off (Arora)

Spore Mass:
"purplish brown and powdery" when mature, (Bessette), "white at first, then purplish brown, powdery", (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), grayish or brownish, purple-tinged at maturity, (Phillips)

Stem:
with or without a sterile base (Bessette), sterile base "white; small or rudimentary", (Schalkwijk-Barendsen), sterile base well developed or almost none (Phillips)

Microscopic:
spores 3.5-4 x 3.5-4 microns, round, weakly echinulate [spiny] to smooth, brownish, (Bessette), spores 4-5 x 4-5 microns, round with a minute pedicel, rough at 440x, small spines at 950x with spines projecting into a thin, colorless envelope that surrounds the spores, spores light yellowish brown; capillitium 3.5-6.5 microns wide, colorless or nearly so, "septate, rarely branched, walls variable in thickness, usually thin, often encrusted, irregular thickenings along the sides", (Bowerman)