Almost Certainly Edible

      Yesterday, I stopped just inside the gate of the North campus to check out what I thought was trash -- big, white pieces of something on the grass, some distance from the lane.

      Close-up, they appeared to be puffball mushrooms, the giant kind, one gone a bit random in shape and several more nearby, including two in the skull-to-basketball size range.

      Puffballs are generally safe to eat (proceed at your own risk: I am not an expert!) and even tasty, though most sources advise peeling them before cooking, especially the larger ones.  Nevertheless, I passed these up: they were right in the middle of a big patch of yellow-brown mushrooms.  The yellow ones in more sheltered areas had caps flecked with brighter yellow-orange: Yellow Patches toadstools,  Amanita flavoconia.  And yes, like most of their relatives, quite poisonous.  When I got back in my car and drove to the building, I realized we had a lot of them, in all the recently-mowed sections of the field.  The weekend rains must have brought them out.

      Those big white puffballs are very probably okay to eat, but I'm going to pass them up.  I don't like the company they're keeping.

      Photographs later, as time permits.