It may be easily confused with Calbovista subsculpta, a similar puffball that—in addition to differences observable only with a microscope—is larger, and has slightly raised warts with a felt-like texture.

Harkness, who called it "a curious and strikingly beautiful species", found fruit bodies growing at elevations between 6,000 and 8,000 feet (1,800 and 2,400 m) in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Although he noted that "in appearance it differs so much from any species known to us, as to be almost deemed worthy of generic rank", he thought that placement in the puffball genus Lycoperdon was the most appropriate classification, despite its unusual cortex.

[10] Two years later he merged the section Cretacea into Sculpta[11] when it was shown that C. subcretacea was synonymous with the arctic-alpine species C. arctica.

Mycologist David Arora opined that C. sculpta resembled "a cross between a geodesic dome and a giant glob of meringue".

[15] When grown in pure culture in the laboratory, C. sculpta is, under certain conditions, able to grow structures called mycelial strands.

Mycelial strands provide a conduit for transporting water and nutrients across non-nutrient material, allowing the fungus to reach new sources of food.

[13] Arora recommends eating the puffball only when it is firm and white inside, as older specimens may have a distasteful iodine-like flavor.

[8] C. sculpta was used as a traditional food of the Plains and Sierra Miwok Indians of North America, who called the fungus potokele or patapsi.

Further, slicing the fruit body of A. magniverrucata in half will reveal internal structures of cap, gills and stem not present in puffballs.

It is typically associated with coniferous forests at high elevations, greater than about 750 m (2,500 ft),[27] on western mountains like the Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range.