This is Reticularia lycoperdon the false puffball - it is a slime mould that fruits by producing a foamy mass that expands from cracks in the wood in which it lives.
It then hardens and dries out. The pale, silvery cuticle cracks and falls away...
... to reveal the dusty brown spore mass which then gets carried away on the wind. (Photos sequence taken on 11th, 16th and 23rd of April)
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Below is a second sequence showing earlier stages of development - it begins as a globular mass before developing a cuticle. (Photos taken on 17th and 19th of April)
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