What is the main difference between shelf fungi, puffballs, and mushrooms???

Question

10 points to whoever explains it the best=]

Answer 1

Shelf Fungi
These fungi make shelves or brackets to produce spores above the ground. They are known as polypores (many pores) because the spore producing cells line pores. The pores make them different than many mushrooms. They also differ in not having a stem or only a short lateral stem. The boletes are the only mushrooms having pores instead of gills. The boletes have central stems and a fleshy texture. Shelf fungi are woody, leathery or fleshy. If fleshy, they do not have a central stem.
Puffball Fungi
Puffballs are round or pear-shaped fruiting bodies that contain spores. They sit directly on the ground or on rotten wood. They range from golf ball size to as large as a watermelon. A big specimen of the giant puffball (Calvatia gigantea) can be almost two feet long and contain 7 trillion spores.

The giant puffball cracks open to allow the wind to carry away its spores. Other puffballs have a small opening at the top. The wind may suck spores out of these openings like smoke drawn from a chimney. The spores can also be “puffed” out of the opening when the fruiting body is hit by raindrops Each spore is 3.5 to 5.5 microns in diameter. They are bone dry, making a mature giant puffball a sack of fine powder. The Lakota tribe of Native Americans used this clean dry material in their medicine. They would pack large wounds with puffball spores to slow bleeding and help blood clot. Giant puffballs are found in the central and eastern USA and Canada.

Mushrooms
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of fungus typically produced above ground on soil or on their food source. The standard for the name mushroom is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, hence the word mushroom is most often applied to fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (called a stipe), a cap (called a pileus), and gills (each called a lamella/pl. lamellae) on the underside of the cap just as do store-bought white mushrooms

Answer 2

Puffballs Fungi