Stinkhorns

Thank you for sending me this picture of a stinkhorn. Did you notice the smell they put off? It is like dead meat, or dirty feet, not too appetizing. But the aroma attracts flies, which may or may not have licked off all the slimey green goo that adorned the upper regions of this stinkhorn.

Stinkhorns smell. Many are phallic shaped, but some have lace net skirts and others form shapes that look like a red whiffle ball (Clathrus ruber) or an octopus (C. archerii). They are a cosmopolitan batch, with spores now spread by fly and man far and wide.

The netted or basket stinkhorn, Dictyophora indusiata has a net that expands out in minutes. It lives mostly in the tropics.

The stinkhorns with a red stem are in the Mutinus caninus group. Like that, Latin-learners? Wait until you hear what the white ones are called. Phallus impudicus. OK now we have stumbled onto one of the deepest dankest secrets of the fungal world. Naming mushrooms after parts of people's anatomy. I tell ya, these old timers had pretty bleak lives. The things they did to amuse themselves...

Anyhow, the word is that all stinkhorns are edible. Which causes me to distinguish edible from palatable. Yes, I have eaten a couple types, and in the egg stage they were really quite good tasting and had an agreeable texture, but it does stink up the kitchen to cook them up. Ventilate! The older specimens are pretty hard to like. You can get them dried in Chinese grocery. Let me know if you find a good recipe for them in this stage.....

They really do use the stinkhorns in face cream preparations in the Balkans. The compounds in these mushrooms act as an exfoliant, leaving skin looking fresh and clean.

Due to their phallic shape and putrid aroma, the stinkhorn occupies a unique place in popular culture. Tori Amos featured them on her CD cover. David Arora's collection of stinkhorn trivia is perhaps some of the best comedy ever written. And then there is the Stinkhorn Lowdown, a song eulogizing Phallus impudicus, right there on the Fungal Boogie CD.

The reason stinkhorns are growing in your mulch is because they eat wood. They probably won't be back next year, they won't poison you or your pet cat or frog or flea circus, so you dont have to spend a lot of time trying to get rid of them. After the day of stinkiness, which is probably when you found it, it will shrivel and fade and then we will all forget about it, except me, because someone new will always be finding (smelling) one!

Stinkhorns are the group of fungi most commonly photographed and sent in to FJ for identification. They are attractive, especially to flies, which sense their foul aroma (many types smell of rotting meat or feces) and alight upon their gooey green gleba (spore mass) that decorates the "head" of the mature stinkhorn.
    The head of a stinkhorn may be red or white, and is covered with a greenish gooey gleba. The tip of some species have a net-like pattern that reminds some people of morels. Other times the heads are funnel-cylindrical shaped.
The stalk is like foam rubber and may be hollow. It may be white or red also, depending on the species.
At the base of the stalk is a purplish and glutinous egg sack, which held the maturing stinkhorn while it was still an egg. This is common with the white stalked stinkhorns.
   Another morph of the stinkhorn family is the red wiffle-ball fungus, or the Clathrus genus. These guys are smelly as well, and come out covered by a green slime, which is very quickly eaten off by flies. A related form looks like a red octopus with legs extended.
    Many species of stinkhorn are used for food. When in the egg phase, the maturing gleba can be sliced and fried. It tastes much better than it smells. Many Chinese recipes utilize dried stinkhorn, and it is sold dried in finer Oriental markets. Having tried them both ways, I think the immature eggs were much tastier and had a more pleasing texture than the rehydrated dried material. Some people have qualms about eating stinkhorns. Relax, you can also use it to make face cream. Apparently stinkhorn cream acts as an exfoliant, stripping off layers of dead skin. Yum.