Scleroderma is a genus of fungi, commonly known as earth balls, now known to belong to the Boletales order, in suborder Sclerodermatineae.

Various members of this genus are used as inoculation symbionts to colonize and promote the growth of tree seedlings in nurseries.

At maturity it splits irregularly over the upper part of the basidiocarp to reveal the dark gleba underneath.

Spores are produced in small brownish-purple, pea-like bodies called peridioles that initially are outlined by wall-like aggregations of white hyphae.

These peridioles disintegrate as the fruit body matures, and by the time the peridium splits open, only a powdery mass of dark spores is visible.