Lycoperdon mammiforme is a rare, inedible type of puffball

Puffball

A puffball is a member of any of several groups of fungus in the division Basidiomycota. The puffballs were previously treated as a taxonomic group called the Gasteromycetes or Gasteromycetidae, but they are now known to be a polyphyletic assemblage. The distinguishing feature of all puffballs is...

 mushroom in the genus Lycoperdon

Lycoperdon

Lycoperdon is a genus of puffball mushrooms. The genus has a widespread distribution and contains about 50 species. In general, it contains the smaller species such as the pear shaped puffball and the gem studded puffball. Most of the time they grow from dead wood and if they grow through the...

, found in beech

Beech

Beech is a genus of ten species of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America.-Habit:...

 woodlands on chalk

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....

.

The fruiting body is spherical to pear shaped, at first pure white with slightly grainy inner skin and an outer skin which disintegrates in flakes that are soon shed, later ochre, chocolate-brown when old, up to 6 cm in diameter.