Sandy pastures, woods and bushy places. Common. August to October.
This appears to be one of the most polymorphous species we have. It is so variable that I have been obliged to modify the usual description very much, in order to include forms which are quite diverse, yet which appear to me to run together in such a way that I am unable to draw any satisfactory line of distinction between them.
There are three principal varieties which I have referred to this species. The first is usually 1–2 in. broad, sessile, or with a very short stem, nearly smooth, being mealy or pruinose, and having a few minute, weak, scattered spinules or scales. Its color is generally whitish or white slightly clouded with brown. It grows in sandy pastures and cleared lands, and is probably the nearest of the three in its resemblance to the type.
I regard the second and third as worthy of a name and designate and define them as follows:
Var. hirtel´lum. Peridium hairy-spinulose with erect or curved sometimes stellately united spinules, which are often of a blackish color.
Ground and decaying vegetable matter in woods.
Var. stella´re. Peridium echinate or stellately echinate with rather stout easily deciduous spines.
Ground in woods and bushy places.
In this species the capillitium and spores are at first greenish-yellow, olive-tinted or brownish; but when fully mature they are purple-tinted. Some care will, therefore, be necessary, lest the last variety be confused with the Echinate Puff-ball, L. echinatum. Peck, 32d Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Spores 6–7µ Massee; globose, distinctly warted, 5.5–6µ, Morgan.