Devil's Dipstick

While on a recent excursion through some Hocking County forests, our crew stumbled onto one of the stranger fungi to be found: a stinkhorn. This particular beauty is sometimes known as the Devil's dipstick. More formally it is Mutinus elegans, a member of the family Phallaceae. A rather suggestive name, the latter, but even in this fading specimen it isn't hard to see how the family got its name.

Mutinus elegans has the distinction of being - probably - the first species of fungi named in the New World. A Brit, John Banister, described it in 1679 and the missionary Banister may have been suitably horrified at what this oddity seems to suggest. However, history does not record his reaction to the bizarre fungus.

As we approached the stinkhorn, I noticed a scurrying movement in the shadows below. A bit of rustling around and we spooked out an American carrion beetle, Necrophila americana. The gelatinous spores of stinkhorns smell foul, like overripe meat, and the malodorous scent attracts insects that make their livelihood by exploiting dead animals. I'm sure if one were to prostrate themselves near some stinkhorns and quietly watch, there would be all manner of ghoulish visitors stopping by.

Stinkhorn

Nasty but fascinating. That's the stinkhorn. Jutting from mulch dyed an unnatural burnt sienna, these strange mushrooms provided a bizarre counterpoint to the mundane ornamental hostas growing in this flowerbed. There are three of the stinkhorns in our neck of the woods, and this one, I believe, is Phallus ravenelii, or Ravenel's Stinkhorn.

Perhaps you took notice of the genus name, Phallus. This thing is suggestive of certain anatomical parts that shall be danced around discreetly on this G-rated blog. But, another, crasser nickname for this 'shroom has to do with dogs and the latter half of the name of those birds that tap wood for a living.

The stalk of the stinkhorn is called a receptaculum, and the sticky malodorous spores are borne on that terminal cap, which looks a bit like melted chocolate. I could smell these from at least ten feet away; stinkhorns exude a foul, carrionlike odor to attract flies and other flesh-eating critters in the hopes that they'll spread the spores.

I would imagine your average, prim, sunhat-wearing trowel-wielding gardner would gasp in shock and horror to find such aberrations thrusting forth from the petunias. Their disgust would only be compounded by the olfactory asssault waged by glutinous spore masses putting off an odor only a Turkey Vulture would love.

But leave the stinkhorns be, say I. They're certainly an odd twist to otherwise boring mulch beds.