Horse manure bag, also known as puffball, is a commonly used traditional Chinese medicine in clinical practice. Horse manure bags are a common name for a group of fungi belonging to the phylum Basidiomycota and the family Mabolidae. They are widely distributed and can be found in almost all parts of our country. After rain in summer and autumn, they mostly grow on grasslands in the wilderness or on decaying wood in wetlands. Puffball basidiocarps are spherical, pear-shaped, gyro-shaped, and oblate; the outer covering is often decorated with small warts or thorns, which fall off when mature, and are papery or membranous; the top is irregularly opened or closed; the rhizoids are obvious or absent. , fixed at the place of establishment or detached from the ground when mature; spores are powdery, and when mature the spores spread to the outside world with the wind; spores have no septa; there are inconspicuous patterns on the surface of the spores.

The distribution range of puffballs:

1. Puffballs are widely distributed and have been recorded in most parts of the world. They are mainly found in different species in Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas. area. The 9th edition of the "Fungi Dictionary" records 18 genera and 158 species of Puffinaceae.

2. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of my country, Chinese fungi workers have investigated the puffball resources in different regions across the country, and 37 species have been recorded. In different local fungi records, such as "Large-scale Puffball in Eastern Guangdong, Central Guangdong, and Western Guangdong" It has been recorded in Fungi Chronicles (Bi Zhishu et al., 1988), Fungi in China (Deng Shuqun, 1963), and Chinese Fungi Collection (Dai Fanglan, 1972).

3. Puffballs are distributed in almost all parts of my country, mainly produced in Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Anhui, Gansu, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places.

Puffball's growth habits:

Puffball likes sandy loam and organic matter such as decayed trees, fallen leaves, dung, and grass. It likes high temperature and high humidity environments, and its fruiting body has root-like roots at the base. Mycelial cords anchor the sand. Generally in late summer and after the autumn rains, in the rainy months of July and August, they will grow in shrubs, underground litter, rotting haystacks, rotten wood on wetlands and other organic matter. Suitable for mountainous or semi-mountainous areas with better living environment.