A smelly encounter

The stinkhorns are once again vigorously thrusting their way out of the forest floor.

The stinkhorn is known formally as Phallus impudicus, the name given to it in 1753 by the great Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. It is pretty obvious why Linnaeus chose the name which translates as shameless or immodest penis.

Stinkhorns develop in and emerge from an underground oval white structure. The cap at the end of the emerged shaft is covered in a sticky olive green substance which is highly attractive to flies which rapidly gather to feast on it, as can be seen in the "extra" photograph, and in doing so carry off the spores on their legs. The adult stinkhorn lives up to its name by being exceedingly smelly. The chemicals responsible, which include oligosulphides, phenol, indole and p-cresol, are also found in rotting carrion and faeces and are highly attractive to flies.

As you can imagine the name, let alone the sight and smell, of a stinkhorn might well might offend those of a more sensitive nature than I. Charles Darwin's granddaughter, Gwen Raverat, in her book on life in Victorian Cambridge described the gentle 'sport' of Stinkhorn hunting .  

In our native woods there grows a kind of toadstool, called in the vernacular The Stinkhorn, though in Latin it bears a grosser name. The name is justified, for the fungus can be hunted by the scent alone; and this was Aunt Etty's great invention. Armed with a basket and a pointed stick, and wearing special hunting cloak and gloves, she would sniff her way round the wood, pausing here and there, her nostrils twitching, when she caught a whiff of her prey; then at last, with a deadly pounce, she would fall upon her victim, and poke his putrid carcass into her basket. At the end of the day's sport, the catch was brought back and burnt in the deepest secrecy on the drawing-room fire, with the door locked; because of the morals of the maids.


Much of this narrative is copied  from one of my blips last year but I thought it was worth a  second appearance, particularly the account os stinkhorn hunting!.