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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
Issued on January 13, 2020, from the forest just west of Tepakán; elev. ~9m (~30 ft), N21.053°, W89.052°; north-central Yucatán state, MÉXICO
EARTHBALL FUNGUS
Not ten feet from the hut's door, one morning a purplish blob about the size of an apple turned up on the ground. Up close it proved to be a fungus attached to the decaying stub of a small tree trunk, at ground level. Obviously it was discharging untold numbers of purplish spores onto the surrounding plants and ground, as shown below:
I figured it was some kind of puffball, but most puffballs have soft skins, while this fungus, when I poked it with a finger and scratched it with my fingernail, felt and sounded woody. I cut across a side lobe to make sure the interior looked puffball fungusy, and it did, as shown below:
In the US we've seen such hard-skinned, puffball-like fungi, and learned to call them earthballs, of the genus SCLERODERMA. In Oregon we found one with an interior of the same purple color, and in Texas one pushed up through the road's asphalt, looking a bit like ours, and maybe it was the same species. However, the Yucatan's fungi are too poorly known for me to venture what species we have.
However, our fungus certainly fits the earthball profile. Species of the genus Scleroderma have tough skins and inside turn brilliant purple instead of the puffballs' olive brown, and forcibly eject their spores from above ground, just like ours. Also the various species prefer dryer climates, like the Yucatan's, and normally occur partially underground, though ours is at ground level. Earthball species are widely distributed, being mostly tropical, and regularly found in southern Mexico.
Maybe someday an expert will let us know which species this is. I'd also like an explanation for those cup-shaped cavities just below the skin, shown above.