Ma Bo

Ma Bo is the dried mature fruiting body of one of several large puffball fungi, principally Lasiosphaera fenzlii, Calvatia gigantea (giant puffball), or Calvatia lilacina, in the family Lycoperdaceae (Agaricales). These saprotrophic basidiomycetes grow on rich soil and grassland after summer rains across temperate Eurasia and North America, producing globose to pear-shaped fruiting bodies 5–50 cm or more across with a smooth white peridium that splits and weathers away to expose a brown spongy mass of spores (gleba) and thread-like capillitium at maturity. The whole mature fruiting body is collected in late summer when the gleba is fully brown and dusty, then trimmed of soil and dried. In Chinese medicine the spore-bearing mass is pungent and neutral, clearing heat from the lung and throat, dispersing wind-heat, and stopping bleeding from external wounds and epistaxis.