Mushrooms are fascinating to me. All the colors and shapes, and flavors! Mushrooms require just the right environment to grow. Some only grow on certain types of decaying wood, such as inky caps that grow only on dead Elm. There is nothing more enjoyable than hiking someplace and finding a puffball. All puffballs are edible (cut it in half first to make sure there's no stem in the middle, which would be an immature mushroom that hasn't opened), just slice them up and fry them in butter.... yum! Once I found a giant brain puffball about the size of a soccer ball. That made for some good eating for several days.