[Growster...]

Does anyone know what these are?

We get them every year, they continue producing for about a month or so, then eventually die away.

I tried picking them and keeping some one year, just in case they were the most expensive truffles you can shake a stick at, but to date, we haven't tried eating them...

(And don't worry, we don't take risks like that, after all, this is Growster Country...)

[DD.]

They look like a small "puffball" to me.

[sunshineband]

Either puffballs as DD has just suggested, or mushroom/toadstool caps pushing through 

Time will tell which they are 

[arugula]

If they are puffballs.....

I remember Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall harvesting, cooking and eating some huge ones with a few mates in his early days at River Cottage.

[richyrich7]

Look like puffballs to me too, NO WAY I'd eat them. Kinda thing thats best left to the experts, else you could end up brown bread 

[Growster...]

I reckon you're all right, but we tried to compare them on Gurgle pics, and didn't get too far.

In the fields near here, there are mushrooms and puffballs, both clearly different, and the mushrooms are delicious, but we've never touched the puffballs of course.

The chaps in our lawn eventually go brown and die away, but they're a regular occurrence, and actually not in the least bit offensive!

[sunshineband]

Ouffballs come up and turn into -- well... puff balls   which are white, and mushrooms etc grow to have stalks so these might be neither  

but some other sort of fungus   like maybe an earth ball 

[Kleftiwallah]

Saw some giant puffballs in a field as we went past on a  canal holiday.  Stopped off and grabbed a couple.   Fried up a treat.  Tasty -      Cheers,   Tony.

[viettaclark]

Are there tree roots under the grass? There are various fungi that hang about tree roots.....

[Growster...]

There are tree roots Vietta.

The fungi collect on one side of a small Pagoda Tree, and stretch to a radius, probably similar to the tree roots. The nearest shrub to the other side is a Pieris.

I'm actually quite proud of these chaps - they just turn up every year, get bashed by the mower, then rot away in September!

I sometimes wish politicians would do that...

[sunshineband]

When they rot  away, do the give out powder or slime?

[Growster...]

They go black inside Sunshine, then just 'disintegrate'!

I didn't know a thing about fungi, until we spent a happy half hour with the Curator at Bedgebury Pinetum once, and he explained exactly how valuable and necessary toadstools, mushrooms and other fungi were to trees and shrubs everywhere.

It's a science in itself, and very interesting!

[DD.]

That makes them sound definately like puffballs.

[sunshineband]

There is a kind of puff ball that grows on old tree roots (not the giant puff ball) so maybe that is what it is.

Racking my brains for the name but all I can think of the the Wolf Fart, but that is paler in colour than yours and definitely blows out spores when disturbed 

[Growster...]

Here are a couple of close ups...

The inside is nearly black, but smells quite pleasant actually...

C'mon someone, tell me they're truffles, and I can sell them to Heston Service Station!