What is this stump fungus?

I have no idea if this can be a mushroom or not. But I have so many mushrooms I took pictures of this too.





It's growing on an old stump, we think it's an apple tree stump. It's under a scrappy oak tree.

I could cut it or whatever anybody recommends to figure out what it might be.

Nancy

It looks like Calvatia gigantea.

commonly known as the Giant puffball, is a puffball mushroom commonly found in meadows, fields, and deciduous forests worldwide usually in late summer and autumn. It is common throughout Europe and North America.

It looks like puffball in texture but I mostly have seen them look more like a ball and not around stumps..

LikestoEatout wrote:It looks like puffball in texture but I mostly have seen them look more like a ball and not around stumps..

Agreed, in my experience puffballs grow in fields or lawns.

This looks like a polypore to me, perhaps the Bitter Polypore Tyromyces stipticus. What does its surface feel like? If you gently poke it, does the flesh seem soft, spongy?

Well, it seems hard as a rock. I tried yanking each from where they are growing, no way, it would have to be cut.

I cut a little off the piece that was in the bottom picture of my first post - when it cut it had that squeaky quality you get with regular grocery store mushrooms, but it was pretty firm. I had a rather small knife and there was no way I could tear the very last bit - I had to cut it all.

Inside it is a dark brown with rings, it rather looks like wood. It smells like a cross between a mushroom and wood.



I was looking at my book and if it's a puffball, maybe it's a tough puffball - or Mycenastrum Corium.

I dunno about the polypores but it doesn't seem like your guess. Sorry I didn't describe the touch and cut of it at first, I'm still learning this stuff.

I was hoping, most of all, that these threads might help me find a group of mushroom foragers.

Nancy

Cathy2 has a post in the events section about a mushroom presentation at the Chicago Botanical Garden today. She also posted this link: http://illinoismushrooms.com/Home.html