Puffballs: Big to really big ones make for a memorable walk in the woods to take photos, earn MOTW

Ken Gortowski was simply taking photos Sunday, but kept finding big surprises.

“In the span of a couple of hours of wandering around in the woods, I came across 15 to 20 puffballs ranging in size from baseballs to bigger than a basketball,” he emailed.

He kept a mid-sized one for taste-testing.

A reminder that foraging for fall mushrooms is prohibited in virtually all area park districts and forest preserves. Also know your mushrooms or connect with somebody who does if foraging for them.

MOTW, the celebration of fall mushrooms and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago outdoors, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times as warranted. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).