Largest edible fungus (specimen)

The world's largest edible fungus was a giant puffball (Calvatia gigantea) measuring 2.64 m (8 ft 8 in) in circumference and weighing 22 kg (48 lb 8 oz). It was found by Jean-Guy Richard of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1987.

The giant puffball is native to temperate areas worldwide. Its basidiocarp (this species' spheroid body inside which its spores develop) can often attain a diameter of 1.5 m and weigh over 20 kg. The basidiocarp develops during late summer and autumn, and occurs in fields, meadows and deciduous forests.

Puffballs are characterized by possessing a specialized basidiocarp known as a gasterothecium, which is unstalked and spheroid in shape, and inside which its spores develop, eventually forming a central mass called a gleba. Whereas the spores of most basidiomycetes are actively shot out from the basidiocarp, those of puffballs merely fall out of the mushroom when it splits or bursts.