Linda Key was shocked to see a nearly 2-pound white blob in her yard.
about the size of a basketball and nestled next to the rocks lining the flower bed outside her window, it greeted her Sunday as she opened the blinds.
It is a large mushroom that a local aficionado calls the tofu of the mushroom world.
"We weren't sure what it was," Key, 53, of Rochester Hills said. "As soon as I looked out the window, I was like, 'What is that thing?' "
Her husband, Glenn Key, 52, reached into the umbrella stand before confronting the blob.
"We didn't know if it was going to start walking away or what. It was so weird looking," he said.
Their son, Wyatt, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Hart Middle School, said he thought he was in a sci-fi movie. "The whole experience has been very weird ... looking at it, thinking it's an alien egg," he said.
It turns out the find is not very novel to Michigan hunt whips, those who lead groups into the woods to forage for mushrooms.
Michigan Mushroom Hunters President Phil Tedeschi, 69, of Dexter said the mushrooms, called puffballs, are a staple of the fall mushroom scene.
"I've seen those at least twice that size," said Tedeschi, a retired University of Michigan researcher whose group of about 230 members hosts about 60 forays, or hunts, per year. "They'll get up to like, maybe almost 3 feet tall."
Tedeschi said the puffball is the edible version of about 30 different varieties and probably grew in two or three days.
"To me, the puffballs are the tofu of mushrooms: They don't have a lot of flavor; they soak up whatever flavor they're cooked with," he said. "Some of the small ones make a nice soup. But the giants ... I just ignore."
Charlene Molnar, horticulture adviser for the Michigan State University Extension Oakland County, said that her office tells novices who discover mushrooms not to eat them.
"There are some varieties that are poisonous," she said. "So the recommendation of the extension is never eat mushrooms out of your backyard."
You don't have to tell Linda Key twice. She's throwing her puffball into the compost pile.
For info about hunting mushrooms, go to .
