Puffball

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Puffball \Puff"ball`\, n. (Bot.)
     A kind of ball-shaped fungus ({Lycoperdon giganteum}, and
     other species of the same genus) full of dustlike spores when
     ripe; -- called also {bullfist}, {bullfice}, {puckfist},
     {puff}, and {puffin}.
     [1913 Webster]



From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  puffball
       n 1: any of various fungi of the family Lycoperdaceae whose round
            fruiting body discharges a cloud of spores when mature
            [syn: {true puffball}]
       2: any of various fungi of the genus Scleroderma having
          hard-skinned subterranean fruiting bodies resembling
          truffles [syn: {earthball}, {false truffle}, {hard-skinned
          puffball}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  54 Moby Thesaurus words for "puffball":
     algae, autophyte, bean, bracken, brown algae, climber, conferva,
     confervoid, creeper, diatom, fern, fruits and vegetables, fucus,
     fungus, grapevine, green algae, gulfweed, herb, heterophyte, ivy,
     kelp, legume, lentil, liana, lichen, liverwort, mold, moss,
     mushroom, parasite, parasitic plant, pea, perthophyte,
     phytoplankton, planktonic algae, plant families, pulse, red algae,
     rockweed, rust, saprophyte, sargasso, sargassum, sea lentil,
     sea moss, sea wrack, seaweed, smut, succulent, toadstool, vetch,
     vine, wort, wrack