A PENSIONER'S garden has been taken over by an invasion of giant puffballs.
Emily Donohue, 67, of Bishop Auckland, County Durham, could not believe her eyes last weekend when she found ten puffballs had suddenly appeared in her garden.
She said: "I thought someone had left a football by the side of the trench. I haven't seen a puffball since I was 14. I am fascinated about how they appeared."
Thoughts that the fungi were rare were dismissed by tree pathologist Graeme Blench, from East Durham and Houghall College.
He said that variety was called scleroderma citrinum and could grow to the size of a human skull.
He said the fungus could have been in the soil for a long period of time then conditions had suddenly been right for it to grow.
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