A trishaw ride with John Newman on Lebanon’ s railtrails is always an enjoyable adventure. Yesterday’s ride on the MRG included finding a cluster of giant puffballs. (I thought they were styrofoam trash, but John, a forager, recognized the white heaps as puffballs.) Puffballs are decomposers. They feed on organic matter such as leaf litter, dead grass, decaying wood and dead tree roots, in the process breaking it down,
Giant puffballs , which can grow as big as a basketbal, are edible and difficult to mis-identify. (They are edible as long as the flesh is white.) This particular puffball was not edible – it was squishy. meaning it was past prime.
Hats off to nature’s humble decomposers, dung beetles, worms, bacteria, fungi such as puffballs, and the like; these organisms are vital for ecosystems, as they return essential nutrients to the soil, water, and air, making them available for new plant growth and preventing the accumulation of dead organisms.
The Mascoma River Greenway 