Summary:
Features include 1) a spherical or slightly flattened fruitbody, with a thin, fragile, white outer layer that splits up into egg-shell-like pieces when mature and scales off, 2) smooth papery inner layer that is blue-gray to purplish brown or lead-colored when old and usually with a metallic luster, rupturing to form a circular opening at the top, 3) spore mass that is white and firm at first, then yellow-olive and mushy, finally olive-brown, chocolate brown or reddish brown, and powdery, 4) attachment by a small mycelial tuft, 5) growth in grassy places in spring to fall, and 6) oval, finely warted spores with a tail-like extension. Bovista plumbea widely distributed and common, (Arora).

Taste:
slightly acrid [peppery], (Lincoff)

Microscopic:
spores 5-7 x 4-6 microns, oval, finely warty, with a pedicel [tail-like extension], (Lincoff), spores 5-7 x 4-5 microns, "oval or broadly elliptic to nearly round, minutely spiny to nearly smooth, with long pointed pedicel" 8-14 microns long, (Arora), spores 4-6.5 x 3.5-5.5 microns, subglobose-oval, smooth, brown, with droplet, (illustrated with long pedicels); basidia 4-spored, 10-20 x 7-10 microns, without basal clamp connection; capillitium up to 25 microns across, brown, thick-walled, "strongly dichotomously branched, without pores and primary septa", (Breitenbach)

Spore Deposit:
olive-reddish-brown (Breitenbach)

Notes:
It is known from many parts of the United States, and reported from ID, AZ, IL, MA, MI, MT, NC, ND, NY, OH, SC, WI, and WY, and also from Europe, United Kingdom, and Russia, (Bates). The University of British Columbia has collections from BC, AZ, and WY. Oregon State University has collections from WA, OR, CA, and OH. The University of Washington also has collections from AK.

EDIBILITY

edible when immature, (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Cerioporus varius (Pers.) Zmitr. & Kovalenko