Well known as one of the largest and most conspicuous of our fungi, and one that is edible when it is still young. It is a saprotroph of nitrogen-rich conditions in gardens, parks, grassland and open scrub. At maturity the whole fungus breaks up to release the spores. Collected specimens photographed during a 'fungus foray' at Tunstall Common, Suffolk, 1984. Only the righthand example might still have been edible, though reportedly it proved not to be.
Edibility remains only while the spore mass is still white and solid.