In a message dated 9/30/2002 11:31:34 PM Mountain Standard Time, NJ-MEMORIES-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: > Who remembers those little balls we used to step on and they puffed out a > dusty cloud. We used to call them puff balls. I forget which type of tree > > they come from. We used to find them on the ground under the tree and > stomp > them. > "Puffballs" -- at least the real ones -- don't come from trees; they're a fungus like a mushroom. They grow under trees and in the woods because it's shady and damp there. They have a brown, papery cover; and when you stamp on them, a greenish-gray, smoky cloud of spores comes out. We don't have them here in Colorado; it's too dry for them. The other thing you might have been thinking of is the "buttonballs" that grow on American sycamore. Those trees are fairly common in NJ, especially for residential plantings. The leaves look almost like maple leaves, and the smooth bark peels in patches and makes the tree look as if it's had a bad sunburn, except that it's greenish underneath instead of red. Those buttonballs fall off in the autumn; they're sort of fuzzy on the outside, and they crumble when you stomp on them. Nothing really smoky like the puffballs, but they do send some small stuff into the air. Another tree that has "buttonballs" is the sweetgum. I remember seeing those growing in the woods in South Mountain Reservation. You don't want to stomp on those, though . . . they're woody and prickly on the outside when they're ripe. Those trees have a maple-y leaf, too, but more star-shaped than either the maple or the sycamore.