Gleba

This article is about the part of some fungi. For the village in Poland, see Gleba, Masovian Voivodeship.

Gleba is the fleshy spore-bearing inner mass of fungi such as the puffball or stinkhorn.

The gleba of the "common earthball" (Scleroderma citrinum), has a dark color.

The gleba is a solid mass of spores, generated within an enclosed area within the sporocarp. The continuous maturity of the sporogenous cells leave the spores behind as a powdery mass that can be easily blown away. The gleba may be sticky or it may be enclosed in a case (peridiole).

It is a tissue usually found in an angiocarpous fruit-body, especially gasteromycetes. Angiocarpous fruit-bodies usually consist of fruit enclosed within a covering that does not form a part of itself; such as the filbert covered by its husk, or the acorn seated in its cupule. The presence of gleba can be found in earthballs and puffballs. The gleba consists of mycelium, and basidia and may also contain capillitium threads.

Cultural references

In the Friends episode "The One With the Lottery", Rachel tells her friends that her baby daughter, Emma, had just said her first word, "gleba". When no one in the group is excited by this news, Ross, Emma's father, explains to Rachel that 'gleba' is not a word. However, Rachel then looks up the word in the dictionary and shows Ross the definition. Filled with joy, Ross, a scientist himself, says, "...she's gonna be a scientist."