I'm pretty sure this grew overnight. It's in a very conspicuous spot in our front yard, hard to miss.
Open area, mostly grass. It's been dry here (Chicago) the last few days, but with significant dew each morning.
I think this is the biggest mushroom I've ever found in my yard.
I'm having a big problem with mushrooms in my yard this year, and I'd like to know how to make it stop. In fact, I was going to start my own thread on the subject. I have at least three different types, including something like the one that you have there, though I know that you really need to be an expert on these things to tell one from another. They grow shockingly fast.
Keep the dogs away from them.
We always have lots of mushrooms, of several different types. Most of them appear alarmingly quickly (anything that grows that fast always concerns me a little - I've seen too many B movies where they try to take over a small Western town). I'm told some are edible, but I don't care to do the empirical research to confirm that. I've seen squirrels happily eating some of them.
I love mushrooms, but I trust the grocery store to have ones I know are safe.
I don’t know what kind, but we have them too. Crazy how fast they grow.
The only edible ones that I feel confident identifying are morels. Those are most certainly not morels.
We get morels, porcini, and some trip balls ones in our yard. If you ever encounter a giant puffball pick it and eat it. We got one about as big as a football a couple years ago in a customer’s yard(with permission).
Eat it. If you trip balls, it's good. If you die, it's bad.
In reply to Patrick :
Just for um, reference, what does a trip balls "puffball shroom" look like? 
Got a pic?
they are a brownish/fleshy and when you kick them they fill the air with Spores, but serious eat them.??? ALL CATTLE FEEDS HAVE A Funguside SO 'MAGIC MUSHROOMS' DON'T GROW. There are still some organic cattle farms. Alway's pick out the red and purpleish veins under the cap it's Strictnin Poison
Could be a giant puffball, and they are said to be edible, but I'd hate to be wrong.
http://eattheplanet.org/puffball-mushroom-youll-be-ok-if-you-follow-one-id-feature/
Eat some. If you wake up dead, it was poisonous. If you wake up alive, eat some more. If you wake up and see Jerry garcia and a line of dancing bears, take a few days off?
In reply to EastCoastMojo :
There are almost 200 strains of special ones, Erowid has a nice gallery, to make sure your pets don't eat them by accident.
A good portion of them bruise blue when you touch them while growing, but that's not a concrete rule. But there are no concrete rules with mushrooms, edible, magical, or poisonous, too many look to similar.
Lycoperdon pyrfrome ? is what I see around here, not edible
We seem to get tons of them literally overnight when it rains. Pretty sure they aren't edible.
They’ve sprouted up like crazy the last couple weeks in our yard too. The turtles seem to love them, so I’ve been trying to mow around them - the mushrooms, I wait until the turtles are bedded down before mowing.
Take a pic of the under-side? If you have kids (or just want to do it for your own amusement,) a spore print would help with identification. I’m no mycologist, but I have become a bit of an amateur mushroom nerd.
But yeah. It *looks* like a puffball. If you cut it in half, it should be pure white and sort of look like mozzarella.
Patrick said:We get morels, porcini, and some trip balls ones in our yard. If you ever encounter a giant puffball pick it and eat it. We got one about as big as a football a couple years ago in a customer’s yard(with permission).
I suddenly feel a need to visit Cleveland.
Oh, who am I kidding. I don't have time for tripping. Sigh.
EastCoastMojo said:In reply to Patrick :
Just for um, reference, what does a trip balls "puffball shroom" look like?
The giant puffballs are food ones, not trip balls ones. Supposedly they taste like fresh mozzarella when sauteed. I didn’t try it, my buddy took it to his friends restaurant and it was the special of the night.
The trip balls ones we have are mildly poisonous so you puke before you trip, but you don’t die.
YES, psychedelic mushrooms, have Strictnine poison in them and causes the Trip. Napoleon was MURDERED by his Servents giving him small doses until it killed Him . It's an Acculminitive poison that will build up in your body. that is why you clean out the gills under the Cap.
watch a Movie called 'Altered States' it gets A little carried away but the begining is Awesome.
In reply to GTXVette :
That's an old wives tale.
If you want something more based on truth than rumor, check out some of Terence McKenna lectures on YouTube, or read some of his books. I recommended "food of the gods", which takes a fact and research based historical view of how psilocybin helped mankind evolve.
I've done a considerable amount of research through the years into psychedelics and their effects on the human body and mind. There's a reason why most things that help migraines are mildly psychedelic. There's also reason why in more civilized nations, they are researching into psilocybin mushrooms to help treat mental health disorders, depression, and PTSD.
It's easy to understand how stories like that start though, death caps and fun caps look pretty similar, grow in similar conditions, but have wildly different effects. For some reason, strychtnine always seems to come up about psychedelics in horror stories, even though there really never was any truth to the rumors.
It's like Apple seeds and cyanide. You'd have to consume tons of Apple seeds to reach the lethal dose of cyanide, but it's technically a possibility.
Here's what I don't understand about mushrooms:
There are statements on those identification websites along the lines of "if you mis-identify a giant puffball mushroom for one of its look-alikes and eat it, you will probably be dead in 24 hours."
So, how does anyone actually try these things? I'm sorry but I don't like mushrooms enough to take that kinda chance...
Robbie said:I'm pretty sure this grew overnight. It's in a very conspicuous spot in our front yard, hard to miss.
Open area, mostly grass. It's been dry here (Chicago) the last few days, but with significant dew each morning.
I think this is the biggest mushroom I've ever found in my yard.
It has grown a bit. Here it is today:
The fact that this forum ( that I consider to be one of the best and broadest brain thrust around) has not been able to positively identify and that fungus, and answer with a black and white Eat/no-eat, is enough to keep me off wild mushrooms forever.
Pete
NOHOME said:The fact that this forum ( that I consider to be one of the best and broadest brain thrust around) has not been able to positively identify and that fungus, and answer with a black and white Eat/no-eat, is enough to keep me off wild mushrooms forever.
Pete
Eh, I'd say the fact that it isn't positively identified means its probably in the "will get you sick but not seriously hurt you" category. Most mushroom hunters know what they're looking for, and eschew what they don't. In Chicagoland, we basically have 2 mushrooms that will or could kill you--the Amanita bisporigera, and the Galerina marginata.
Many others will make you sick, but these two are actually dangerous to an adult (and way moreso to kids and pets). 
There are a few edible ones as well--the puffball that was mentioend above (I don't think this is one), morels, porcini, etc. The only one that I would look at and say "this is edible" and actually feel confident is the morel, which is obviously not this one.
In reply to RevRico :
Really I don't think I care how NAPOLEON died but that story was easy to buy into.
ANYTHING that can help unlock our brains I will support, We have been told we can't do things so long we forgot how, TIMOTHY are you still here. read the TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD. lysergic Dyethelmalide (LSD) Was developed in the 20's I believe, to work with mental health, but Germany became Nazi and it was used to create Fear in interrogation's to make people Talk about secret stuff. With Small doses it can be an enlightining experieace with a Guide. Talk a Walk Around the Bay with TIMOTHY LEARY.
if you haven't lately, re read Alice in Wonderland.
That's a Trip.
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