Unlike most puffballs the western giant puffball reproduces in three stages asexually. This sub-phyla also includes the "classic" mushrooms, polypores, corals, chanterelles, crusts, puffballs and stinkhorns. The basidospore family include mushrooms, rusts, smuts, brackets, and puffballs. Immature gilled species still contained within their universal veil can be look alikes for puffballs. Bovista is a genus of fungi commonly known as the true puffballs. None of the stalked puffballs are edible as they are tough and woody mushrooms. Stalked puffballs do have a stalk that supports the gleba. All false puffballs are inedible, as they are tough and bitter to taste. Additionally, one guide says that the puffballs are edible when densely fruited. Smaller western giant puffballs usually clump of the epididymal covering of the parent. The presence of gleba can be found in earthballs and puffballs. The flowers are mincing and white in colour, forming clenched puffballs. False puffballs are hard like rock or brittle. Giant puffballs resemble the earthball ("Scleroderma citrinum"). True puffballs do not have a visible stalk or stem.